What’s the Difference Between a WAV and an MP3?

Quick Daily Podcasting Tips by Alitu

Welcome to Pocket-Sized Podcasting, brought to you by Alitu: The Podcast Maker. And on this episode, we’re talking about the difference between WAV and MP3 files. The major difference between WAVs and MP3s are size and quality. WAV files contain more detail, but are also much bigger. Think of a WAV file as an original painting, and MP3 files as prints of that painting. Podcast episodes are almost always released in MP3 form because it has a good file size to quality ratio. MP3s have their own size and quality scale too. They’re called bitrates, and we’re going to talk about them on the next episode. WAVs are known as a “lossless” format because they contain the full detail of the original recording. But only a handful of people in the world could listen to spoken-word content both in its WAV form, and on a good MP3 version of it, and be able to tell the difference. MP3s keep storage and costs down for you and your listeners. And you won’t be shocked to learn that Alitu exports your episodes in MP3 form for you, automatically. Remember, as ever, you get a free trial at http://alitu.com