Other Audio Formats

By Dan Hope

AA

The standard format used for audiobooks purchased from Audible.com, AA files are designed to combine excellent voice quality with high compression rates for large files.

AIFF

The file extension for AIFF music files stands for Audio Interchange File Format. It is used as the standard sound format on Macintosh computers and is actually quite similar to the WAV format used by Windows. AIFF files can carry the extensions .aif or .iff depending on the application. These files are usually quite large because they do not support file compression.

ASF

The Advanced Systems Format, or ASF, was developed by Microsoft and can be used for both audio and video files. These files may contain WMA data.

DSS

The Digital Speech Standard format is used to store voice recordings from speech recognition programs and voice recorders.

GSM

The GSM extension stands for Global System for Mobile Audio. The GSM format was designed for telephony use in Europe. It provides exceptional voice quality while still minimizing file size. It is one of the preferred formats for voice recording.

MID

The mid extension is actually a shortened version of the MIDI abbreviation. MIDI files, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface files, do not contain actual audio data; instead they contain lists of musical notes and durations that a synthesizer can play.

RA

A Real Audio file, or RA file, is created by RealPlayer for streaming audio over the internet and playing audio clips in a Web browser.

VOX

The VoxWare Dialogic Audio File, or VOX file, is a MetaVoice encoded audio file that is used to simulate human speech. It is not very common for music related applications.

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