Audio File Formats - MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC 

The human ear can't hear more than 30fps.

downloading music and it’s a .exe *seems legit*

Human legs can't hear more than 8GB of ram

2:06 did i just got rickrolled?

the editing pleases me greatly

The "old" MP3 player that they show is actually a current lossless model, FIIO X3-II which also works as DAC and it plays everything you throw at it.

*_just make everything an .exe_*

0:41 - *LOSSY Compression* ...MP3 ....AAC .....OGG | 2:38 - *LOSSLESS Compression* _music_ ...FLAC ....ALAC | 3:55 - *LOSSLESS Compression* _movies _ ...Dolby True HD ....DTS HD .....Dolby Atmos | 4:30 - *UNcompressed* ...WAV ....AIFF

I have crippling compression

I always knew CDs were superior. They all laughed at me....but I knew.

Mine are all 320Kbps Mp3 files.

I'm glad this video exists. Ever since the introduction of MP3 to the market, it has turned music quality into garbage. And I was even more sad when I was hearing radio stations actually play mp3 files like if the FM interference was not bad enough.. smh! If any of you have ever heard a low bitrate MP3 through surround sound speakers will understand that the sound instead of having a nice smooth reverb, it sounds all gibberish and noisy. Especially when listening to music with crisp high hats like Metal or Rock music. Mp3, lacks quality in that regard although I must say, using a proper encoder, sometimes it's hard to distinguish between 320kbps Mp3 or WAV / FLAC. But from a producer standpoint when using effects and what not, Mp3 or other lossy formats should be avoided at all costs. Mp3 is the equivalent to JPG whereas FLAC / WAV is the equivalent to PNG / BMP. I can understand back in the day when memory was low and expensive, it was a viable option to store music in mp3 or other lossy format, but nowadays with Terrabyte hard drives, MP3 should be dead. I am currently trying to locate every single song I ever downloaded in FLAC or WAV for optimum sound reproduction.

Linus doing dubstep, I need that gif.

MP3's patent expired recently in the US, and it have been patent free since 2012 in the EU. Get them facts straight Luke :b

I have been playing clarinet for 10 years and I am currently getting a degree in music. Listening to music and training my ears is kind of my job and something I love to do regardless of having to do it for school. I will go to the far corners of the internet if it means finding high quality FLAC files of music I am looking for, because even though I use an iPhone (which cannot officially use FLAC even though iOS 11 technically supports it and will play it if you use a workaround), it means I have archives and am future proofing. I personally, even with my trained ear, cannot necessarily discern a difference between a FLAC file and the same track converted to a 320Kbps MP3. My high-quality Sennheiser headphones plugged into my Marantz receiver helps a lot with making nitpicks, but considering I do most of my music listening in the car over Bluetooth or CarPlay anyway, it makes absolutely no difference to me. HOWEVER, I check to make sure my music is not peaking (distorting at certain points) before converting. In my experience, even music I have ripped off of CDs myself using Exact Audio Copy have points where they peak. So, when I am converting to MP3, I am not just making the file smaller to more conveniently fit on my phone, I am also making it the way I want using a lossless version as a base so I am not making edits to something that has already lost data. I may not be able to tell the difference between FLAC and 320Kbps MP3, but I can tell the difference between 320Kbps and 128Kbps. You may not be able to tell and that's okay; it doesn't mean you have a bad taste in music or anything like that--your ears are probably just not as trained as others who are musically trained or listen to music as a hardcore hobby (or you use crappy Apple headphones. Stop that). Also, in the future, who knows if MP3 will be relevant anymore? Maybe FLAC will become a relevant format for the general public, or maybe a better format than MP3 will get into the mainstream--who knows. As long as I have a collection of lossless music, I can convert it to essentially whatever I want.

DSD: Exists. Techquickies: I'm gonna ignore that.

AAC should be standard rather than mp3 if it offers higher quality at lower bitrate. In a lot of cases, it would result in smaller filesize while maintaining similar or higher quality than its mp3 counterpart.

Anyone else notice that the 'Old MP3 player' stock image is actually a pretty recent audiophile Fiio which is capable of playing FLAC?

Even if Linus isn't the main speaker in the video, you can't escape the Linus

I have some input: For very low bitrate audio, I recommend using opus (with .ogg container), it sounds MUCH better than AAC at bitrates around or below 64kbits/s. In fact, the audio is listenable all the way down to 16kbps!

I already replied to a comment with most of this info, but I also wanted to put it here. As an (self-claimed and poor) audio enthusiast, IMO the main reason to have lossless music is to have the freedom to convert it to the lossy file type of your choice. By storing a lossless version of your music, it's basically an archive providing you much more flexibility. I convert my FLAC collection to 96kbps Opus for my phone, since it saves so much space it's insane (and I can't really hear a difference honestly), but I can also convert it to v0 MP3 for players which don't support Opus, while avoiding generation loss. While this technique calls for more "stationary" storage (obviously because I'm storing lossless files), it let's me put so much more music in a 64GB microSD than 320kbps MP3 could ever, while, like I already said, avoiding generation loss from converting one lossy codec to another. Also, Android natively supports Opus files with the "ogg" extention since Android 6, so even better. This also allows for a "future-proofing" of your collection. You may be using MP3 now, but what about the future? A different codec may be the industry standard (hopefully Opus lol), in which case you'll have to convert to it. Over time, another codec may pop up, and you'll have to convert once again. The effect of the generation loss will stack, and you're left with an artifact-ridden music file after several rounds of conversions. Lossless files avoid this by being, well, lossless. No matter how many codecs become the new standard, we can convert right from the source audio, therefore preserving the quality as long as we keep the lossless file. And if new lossless codecs become the standard, well...that's too easy. So yeah, for me the main reason for me to have my collection in lossless isn't for the improvement in quality. Seriously, I even ABXed 96kbps Opus against FLAC and couldn't hear the difference (I hope it's because I have untrained ears rather than bad hearing D:). But it's because of the archival concept and it's ability of allowing more format flexibility.

Talk about HEIF pls!

.WAV - preserves nearly all of the quality as lossless. Great for music editing in precise manners. .MP3 - sacrifices original quality but saves lots of space(around 1/3 of the original file.) .FLAC & .ALAC - ALAC is for Apple. .FLAC is identical, but is more compatible and uses algorithms to predict sounds, therefore reducing file size with lossless quality. .AAC - What .OGG - ???? Linus doesnt even pronounce how its spelled. 👍 hopefully i took allot out of this video lil

1:15 BEST PART OF THIS FREAKING VIDEO

audiophile formats

*Turns off Adblock. Has to watch a 4 and a half minute long fricken ad.... *WTF RU-vid*

I really appreciate your concise information about the differences between audio codecs. Great stuff.

1:15 nice to see some quality music - heavy metal

Great vid guys! One of my favourite Tech Quickies! John writing and Luke hosting is an awesome combo. Perhaps some recommendations/info on music streaming services? Especially their 'high quality' modes?

humans cant hear more than 30cps (cowbell per second)

I love your calm approach to your subject!

Quick additional Info to aac - there is an "sub-format" called stems by "native instruments". It saves the song with normal aac BUT in 4x stereo for each instrument (drums, bass, synth/guitar, vocals/fx). Main usage is djaying - but in comes incredible close to flac/wav/aiff in my a-b tests.

.flac master race !!!!1!!

0:40 When the acid hits

I love listening to FLAC, even though I can't hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 320 or 256. It adds that extra excitement and speciality when I know that's I'm listening to lossless audio 😋

You missed Opus. This is the most used audio format. Even now the sound from this video is compressed in Opus. Opus is the best lossy audio format. It is used in VP9, AV1 videos. Also in almost all VOIP apps.

techquickie's memes are getting pretty lit fam.

flac for storing the music long term, convert into whatever file format your player requires. Nothing sounds as bad as multiple lossy compression algorithms applied after each other…

Woah! Such a great video. It has a clear explanation and sets up an interest base for the person. I myself am intrigued by the different sound elements I can hear with a good quality headphone or speaker.

I used to do WMA lossless. Glad I did, knowing I lost nothing switching to FLAC. That's another huge advantage to storing your audio lossless. Flexibility.

I re-re-really liked the editing (and script) on this one :)

midi master race

"Their library is full of 128 kbps rips from RU-vid" 😫 ughhh, I felt thaaaaat. Thanks for the video. I had a basic understanding of mp3, wav, and lossy and lossless files, but I did not know everything that you talked about. ^_^

This video combines good information, with a very nice presentation, those guys linustech are funny and tells you everything that you need without wasting your time or boring you with no sense information.

"LOSLESS COMPRESSION" 2:54

Luke is better than Linus at this

256 Kbps MP3 for convenience whether I'm out driving somewhere or at home but, every so often, I like to sit down and have a more active listening experience with my cassettes and vinyl. It's less an "audiophile" thing and more just harmless nostalgia that helps me relax.

90% of my playlist is ripped from RU-vid.

WE NEED THE BASSHEAD LINUS 1 HOUR. NOW.

AAC is still best for lossy audio - It depends on person (kids can hear above 16KHz but older people cant hear 15KHz) - Maybe Bone Conduction is solution to restore hear at 16KHz)

Perfect! I needed exactly this information so I could edit audio tracks with more granularity by ripping from .cda to .wav

Regardless of what audio format is best, your ears are the best judge, I for one have a damn good ear and I can always tell if a song sounds like shit or not regardless of whether it's MP3 or WAV or whatever, don't put all your faith in the audio formats of your choice but put the faith in the listening experience with headphones on.

>Be me. >Watching vid. >Enjoying audio file shenanigans. >Suddenly hear fans ramping up on the computer. >wft.jpeg >Open Task manager. >Google/RU-vid using %54 of 4 core 3.9 Ghz processor. >Look at RU-vid vids. >See 4k on the settings button. >Look at my screen. >Look at 4k button. >Mfw I only have a 1080p monitor. >Thanks RU-vid for trying to burn up my computer and reminding me I am a mid-tier peasant.

Tbh the biggest different I feel between lossy and lossless music is it seems the instruments are played apart on different tracks in perfekt harmony and not just put into the same lane into eachother

I have two copies of my audio files. I have one that has been ripped (dithered 24bit/88.2K if it is from vinyl) is stored in Flac. I used a multi-encoder to rip the same files to MP3 at the same time and use those when sending the files to my DAP, phone, or cloud storage for remote playback. That way, even if I have a house fire that takes out my entire Vinyl and CD collection, I still have a master copy of my collection on the master backup in the bank vault. It may seem paranoid, but it took me hundreds of hours to catalog, rip, CDs, and catalog, record and edit my vinyl.

I needed this refresher, thanks

Your “libary” [just after 6:00] is missing the “R”. ~Antonio

i think you should buy whoever edited this video a pizza hut for dinner tomorrow

Wow, I feel so dumb, but I really don't know much about sound, sound waves, etc - but I'm learning! I'm new to recording and when I was mixing down my songs to wav and then also to mp3, I didn't realize the mp3 had defaulted to the lowest quality file setting (not that I would have known that mattered!). I couldn't figure out why I was getting this constant hissing sound in my recording when it wasn't there in the wav file. It seriously sounded like trash. As soon as you mentioned the kbps settings, I went into my program, saw that it was at 64, changed it to 320 and problem solved. Thank you!

well, I came here looking for a video to quickly explain audio formats to a friend, but I found the channel quite nice and I think I'll stay. learned a good thing myself too

2:38 Some folks aren't satisfied... 😂

What about Opus?

Gosh this channel is *GOLD* !!!!!

This video has one of the best intros of Techquickie 😂

*watches video* *gets to ****0:37* "Oh hey, Alien Cookies!"

Didn't the patents on mp3 just expire? I remember seeing something about it being technically free software now.

Thank you for uploading

Nothing about Opus, which compresses better than almost any other format without quality loss, and which can now be played by most OSs now (phone or desktop). It’s even particularly good with voice, at *really* low bitrates.

I generally don't find a ton of difference b/w 320kbps MP3s and 1411kbps FLAC, so I choose the former b/c I'm anyway going to listen to music on my phone. P.S. 128kbps MP3s are an abomination that shouldn't exist.

1:15 - those are some damn good albums 🤘🏼🤘🏼

Nice explanation of the various formats, thanks

If anyone is wondering the name of the song at 0:38, its called Alien Cookies by Dirty Audio

Based on my experience, 256kb AAC usually sounds well enough to not matter, and means I can store more than like three albums on my phone.

Hey, that makes me one of two dozen people! I _love_ Tidal.

The editing in this video was nothing short of godly

Thank you for teaching me about .flac, *it is the best thing to have embraced my ears*

On a (redbook-compliant) CD, the audio isn't "typically" stored at 1411kbps, it's *always* stored at that: 2 channels, 16-bit samples taken 44100 times per second: (2x16)x44100=1411200. And 128kbps YT rips? Nah, get on with the program, it's gotta be 128kbps YT rips of videos that have already been transcoded for the umpteenth time, for that extra digital glitchy juiciness! 1st generation upload rips, phooey!

1: Pick random file you wanna compress and rename to .wav 2: Compress using FLAC 3: Become the undisputed king of the file compression business

Super helpful, thank you!

Interesting I was wondering about these!

320kb/s mp3s are the sweet spot for most music

This is for the real audio files.

I actually was recommended to watch this video for my computer science class, which I guess is kinda neat.

Im glad that quality is consistently moving up because anything below really high resolution mp3 files sounds like ass with some headphones good enough to reproduce those details.

1:15 nice selection! XD

*WAV for studio* *FLAC for vinyl* *OGG for demo* Uwu :3

Very helpful, thank you

Golden age of this channel

My entire music library is mp3 rips from RU-vid. They sound fine to me and I don't see any need to put anymore effort into anything else. Roast me.

FLAC is my favourite. Doesn't need tons of space, but sounds great. I rarely notice a difference between flac and wav.

5:11 I am one of those specially when it is hard to get old songs from the 80s or 90s and magically you can find them on YT

Thanks for this!

Tip for people not willing to waste money on stuff that makes no difference to them: search around with Google on blind mp3/wav/flac/ogg tests. Personal opinions on how much you can actually hear are often biased. I've honestly seem people who invested tons of money on audiophile grade gear not being able to tell a 96kbps mp3 (radio quality) from a 128kbps one (CD quality)... long long time ago, but it happened. I've also heard people that even though they could hear a difference, they actually prefered the lower bitrate audio for some reason. And the thing is: depending on your entire audio system, even if you could hear the difference between uncompressed and compressed, it's quite possible that your speakers or amps aren't even good enough for you to take advantage of that. Entire world of crappy audio gear out there. More or less current rule of thumb? If bluetooth speakers or listening to music on the crappy standard earphones that comes included with a smartphone out of the box, including the ones that comes with iPhones, you probably don't need to invest much on an audio system, or on stuff like uncompressed music files. I won't even say anything about people who *gasp* listen to music using smartphone loudpeakers... just please don't do it in public spaces? Please? Now Luke, let's see you try to pull a Techquickie on video formats. xD A Techquickie with 10 parts of 40 minutes each. :P

OK, but what program plays midi files?

thanks for the break-down!

Awesome, thanks, Luke

Never been able to tell the quality difference even when trying on high-end audio equipment. In real world scenarios, MP3 is the way to go for most use cases.

0:12 This made me laugh so much!!

The HammerFall CD at 1:15 made me more excited than it should have.

Great video. Thanks.