Audio file extension; What are they, what are they for and what types are there?

Gone are the CDs, your music devices and, in fact, even the radio. Now the digital is taking in all aspects and in its most current version and we listen to everything through files, data or tracks that include sound content that we can reproduce with different programs and appliances.

Part of these is the audio file extension, which Is that which indicates the type of track which is what we have in front of us. Of course, we also have other elements, although the one that interests us and that we will talk about next is precisely that.

We advise you to save this post in bookmarks because It will come in handy when it comes to identifying the audios you download and knowing how to play them. We are going to show you, therefore, what these formats are, why and for what they are used and where and how you can play the audios they accompany.

What is the extension or format of an audio file and what is it really for?

The format of a file will tell us how it is built, what its characteristics are and with what software or program we can run it. In the case of the audio file extension, what it is going to tell us, in effect, is the characteristics that soundtrack has.

each extension assumes a type of quality, compression, program and codecs necessary for interpretation and reproduction, etc. All file types audio are made up of a name. The extension would be alphanumeric group that we find accompanied by a period after said name.

For example, the track “NoMeAcuerdo.mp3”:

It tells us that this song is called “I don’t remember” (“I don’t remember”) and that the extension it has is of type “.mp3”that is, that its characteristics are those necessary for mp3 players they can play them.

It is worth mentioning that in order for them to achieve it, both they and the files must have codecswhich are small elements that encode and decode information and who act as interpreters.

The codecs are found in each song or track and correspond to one type of extension or another (also called format). the player of audio that we want to use it has to work with those same codecsso that there is an interaction between both and the information contained in the file in question is deciphered.

It should be noted, although we have already said it, that only by knowing the format of a track we can get an idea of ​​its quality. In this regard, there are two essential concepts.

• Sample Rate: A sample is a piece or sample. Audio software uses these to play tracks efficiently. The rate is simply the number of samples that are played in each second of recording. Obviously, the greater the quantity, the more elements working at the same instant of the track and, therefore, the more details that are obtained (or maintained).
• BitDepth: The bit depth is, in turn, the information that we find within each sample. This is similar to what we find in the image sector, thus obtaining that more bits mean more information in each sample.

Types of extensions and formats of audio files and their associated programs to play them

Of course, we will finish by telling you what the characteristics of the most used audio extensions are, we will name the rest so that you do not lose sight of them and, obviously, we will tell you where you will be able to play each one of them.

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Do you know other extensions to open and edit audio and sound files? Leave them in the comments and we will add them to the list, it will surely be of great value to other readers!