If you use iTunes or if you buy and download digital music, you’ll have come across a number of terms and abbreviations that describe digital audio files. This alphabet soup can be quite confusing.

The absolute lowest MP3 bit rate you should consider is 128kbps. This was often referred to as being CD quality, but it's far from being so. This bit rate will allow you to get much more music on to ...

If you stream music (and who doesn't these days) you've obviously come across abbreviations at the end of the audio files. The acronyms reading WAV, FLAC, MP3 and so on, are called audio codecs. You ...

Smartphones have long since surpassed the old MP3 player when it comes to portable music, and continue to include more and more impressive audio hardware to win over the audiophile crowd – from front ...

Now that the patents for the popular MP3 audio codec have expired, it’s unlikely that the format is going anywhere, despite many reports that misinterpreted what the end of the format’s licensing ...

We’ve all listened to digital music, right? And that means you’ve probably heard of “bitrate” or come across files that have “kbps” at the end. Thing is… what does that mean? What the hell is bitrate?

Do audio bit rates matter? With iTunes enhanced-bitrate music coming in a month, we were hoping for a vast improvement. But can anyone tell the difference between a music track encoded at 320kbit/sec, ...