Audio guides
How to get audio jobs done in the browser — and what each choice costs you. Each guide links to the tool that does it.
How to convert audio without losing quality
Which conversions are genuinely lossless, which always cost something, and the one rule that prevents most avoidable damage.
2 min readaudioWhat audio format should you use?
A short answer for each common situation, and the two questions that decide it in every other case.
1 min readaudioHow to reduce audio file size
Four levers in order of effect, and the one that most people forget — which halves a spoken-word recording on its own.
2 min readaudioHow audio compression works
What a psychoacoustic model actually removes, why speech and music behave so differently, and what the artefacts sound like when it goes too far.
2 min readaudioMP3 vs WAV
The size difference is about tenfold. When that trade is worth taking, when it is not, and which one to hand to someone else.
1 min readaudioWhy WAV files are so large
The exact arithmetic behind 10MB a minute, why that is the point rather than a flaw, and what to convert to when you no longer need it.
2 min readaudioMP3 bitrate explained
What each bitrate actually sounds like, the sizes they produce, and why speech and music want completely different numbers.
2 min readaudioLossy vs lossless audio
What each actually does to the sound, when the difference is audible, and why converting between them in the wrong order wastes the file size you paid for.
2 min read