FLAC halves file size with no quality loss; OGG and MP3 trade quality for smaller files

Freesound distributes sounds in four formats with different tradeoffs. FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is lossless compression: it reduces file size by roughly half compared to uncompressed audio but preserves the exact original waveform — no data is discarded. OGG Vorbis and MP3 are lossy codecs: they discard perceptually less important audio information to achieve much smaller files than FLAC, at the cost of some quality degradation. OGG Vorbis is generally more efficient than MP3 at equivalent quality. WAV and AIFF are fully uncompressed — identical to the original waveform but with the largest file size. For sample-sourcing, FLAC or WAV/AIFF are preferred when maximum fidelity matters; MP3 previews are lower-bitrate versions Freesound provides for streaming only. The downloaded file is always the original uploaded file.

Examples

A 10-second 44.1 kHz stereo WAV might be ~1.7 MB; the FLAC equivalent ~0.9 MB with identical quality; the equivalent MP3 at 128kbps ~160 KB but with some compression artifacts.

Assessment

Rank FLAC, OGG, WAV, and MP3 by quality preservation. Which format should a producer choose when downloading a Freesound sample for use as a commercial release master? Why is MP3 preview quality lower than the downloadable file?