Digital audio formats
PCM rates, DSD families, lossless containers and the MQA format — what each does and what plays it back.
Opus (IETF Open Audio Codec)
Opus — the open-source IETF-standardized successor to both MP3 and AAC, optimized for streaming-friendly variable bitrate and ultra-low l…
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding — the successor to MP3 and the format of choice for iTunes / Apple Music's lossy tier, YouTube's audio track…
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III)
MPEG-1 Audio Layer III — the dominant lossy compression format for two decades and still the universal-compatibility baseline in 2026. Pe…
AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
Apple + Electronic Arts' uncompressed PCM container — the macOS equivalent of WAV with proper metadata tagging support. Audibly identical…
ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)
Apple Lossless Audio Codec — the FLAC equivalent in the Apple ecosystem. Compresses PCM to ~50–60% of source with bit-perfect reconstruct…
DSD512 (22.5792 MHz, Octuple-Rate DSD)
DSD512 at 22.5792 MHz — the upper-bound DSD rate currently supported by consumer hardware. Octuple-rate DSD pushes the noise-shaped quant…
MQA (Master Quality Authenticated)
Master Quality Authenticated — a lossy/lossless-hybrid encoding format that folds high-sample-rate content into a 24-bit / 48 kHz PCM con…
WAV (Waveform Audio File Format)
Microsoft + IBM's uncompressed PCM container. Stores PCM samples raw, with a small header — no compression, no quality loss, but file siz…
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
Free Lossless Audio Codec — the dominant open-source lossless compression container. Compresses PCM source material to roughly 50–60% of…
DSD256 (11.2896 MHz, Quad-Rate DSD)
DSD256 at 11.2896 MHz. Quad-rate DSD pushes noise-shaped quantization further above the audible band and reduces the modulation distortio…