Currently, There are many popular audio file formats and they own respective advantages and disadvantages. The following introduction is just brief comparison.

WAV

This is a standard audio format of ripping data sound in Windows. Due to the Microsoft's influence, it has been a universal digital sound file format and almost all audio processig softwares supporting WAV. Because WAV is an uncompressed audio format, so, WAV files is large and not suitable to spread in internet.

MP3

MP3 (MPEG Layer III) developed by Fraunhofer Research (the leading MPEG research institute at Germany and also the people who build the MP3 codec for Internet Explorer), the algorithm is open and free for anyone to use. MP3 has become a source of great controversy as it facilitates the transfer of CD quality music on portable media and the internet. Despite the complains of commercial entertainers MP3 has become a standard in music broadcasting. Supported in popular packages like Winamp and Internet Explorer, MP3 only requires a 486 to play on average bitrates.

VQF

VQF is an audio compression format developed by NTT company and bought by Japanese YAMAHA company. This technolody is a sharp competition with MP3. Its major advantage is higher compression rate and better sound quality than MP3. YAMAHA said so to its proponents. Because VQF is an exclusive format of YAMAHA company and get limited support broadcaster, so its influence is not so good as MP3. VQF is dependent on the broadcaster of YAMAHA. Ohters, such as WinAMP need to install support software.

RAM

The two extensive names mean a file format suitable for digital audio technology in internet developed by Real company. For its oriented goal is instant spread in internet£¬so it is far below than MP3 in Hi-Fi, whereas,it is outstanding and transcendent in low-Fi.To air RA, the Real Player is necessary.

WMA

WMA (Windows Media Audio) You may have encountered Windows Media Audio under the name of "ASF". ASF is Microsoft's specification for streaming, essentially a wrapper format. WMA is a lossy audio compression algorithm which works only as part of the Windows media player and not as a standard Windows codec (so that you may not convert WMA files to other formats).