Digital Audio
Threedef supports a wide array of the most popular audio formats for playback and CD ripping, so you can enjoy
as many available music formats as you like.
For a full list of formats supported for playback and ripping, see our format support page.
We'd like to take this opportunity to endorse the Xiph project,
and three associated audio formats: Ogg Vorbis,
FLAC, and
Speex, which we feel represent the best that
digital audio technology has to offer.
| Ogg Vorbis |
The best choice for ripping and storing a large collection of music on a hard drive or portable player.
Because Ogg Vorbis stands out with unmatched quality per file size, it's become a de facto standard
format for digital music enthusiasts.
Here's a link to some listening test results
posted at HydrogenAudio.org.
Check out the Xiph project's Dare to Compare page
to compare Ogg Vorbis to some similar formats.
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FLAC
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FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a lossless compression format. Lossless means that audio stored as
FLAC is played back or restored to its exact, original quality. If you rip a CD to FLAC, you get
full CD quality audio when you play the FLAC file.
Though FLAC files are large (usually 3-4 times the size of an Ogg or MP3 file), they're great for
archival purposes or backup of CD audio.
See also Monkey's Audio and OptimFrog.
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| Speex |
Speex is a codec optimized for storing speech. It offers very high compression ratios for voice data,
and is widely used to transmit speech across the internet, such as in voice-over-IP (VOIP) applications. In
a media library, Speex is very efficient for storing books on tape or other voice-only audio.
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Instant Music
Digital Audio
