ROUND 1

File Size

For the most part, this factor isn’t a major concern now that we’re filling every available inch of our machines with an extra terabyte or 12, but your primary use of discrete audio files likely won’t be on the desktop—it’ll be on the move. And mobile devices, be they smartphones or the new generation of dedicated players, inevitably offer up pathetic storage options.

FLAC produces, by its nature, the largest files by far of the compression methods here. If you generate your own, FLAC files are typically smaller than directly copying a CD into a bit-for-bit WAV file, but not by a massive amount. The usual ratio is around 10:6. Expect a typical track to weigh in at around 30MB, although commercial hi-res files tend to trend toward far larger sizes.

MP3 and Ogg Vorbis are equally miraculous when it comes to squashing listenable music into a small space— tracks that are listenable tend to weigh in at around 4–5MB, depending on the encoder used to compress them, and the specific settings fed into it. Arguably, Ogg Vorbis offers the best quality-tosize ratio, but it’s a rather subjective win.

Winner: Ogg Vorbis