The tradeoff is that you have very large file sizes. These algorithms may perform some kind of compression on the audio, but it doesn't remove any audio data, thus nothing is lost. So what's the difference between these two? Lossless algorithms What compression means in audio codecsĪudio compression algorithms are divided into two categories: Lossless and Lossy. Today, we'll be looking at software encoders and we'll focus our attention on the WAV format. Some examples of such codecs are MP3, FLAC, WAV, and AAC. The software counterpart is an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio. They can be implemented as hardware codecs, which encode analog audio to digital audio and vice versa.Īn example of such codecs are sound cards in your computer, which have built-in analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) circuits. I'm talking about audio codecs.Īudio codecs, in simpler terms, are just encoders and decoders ( co - coders, dec - decoders, or co - compressor, dec - decompressor). They've also developed a method to save them in digital format. So naturally, engineers found a way to convert these analog signals into digital signals. This means that it cannot be stored and processed by the computer directly, as a computer only understands digital signals. Since audio or sound is a wave (a literal, continuous wave) it is analog in nature. Audio is a very important part of any digital media.

Wav to mp3