And the Winner Is…

It’s not a categorical win, because format use is a very subjective thing, but we’re giving it to FLAC. It’s well established, but flexible and powerful enough that it’s poised to be the de facto audio format of the future, and if quality is your goal, there’s no substitute for a lossless format. Ogg Vorbis’s open nature is to its credit, and it’s certainly capable of some serious quality, but it’s always sat as an alternative rather than a leader—it’s MP3 for those who wouldn’t use MP3 because of its closed, patented nature. With that negative seemingly now crossed off the list, it’s likely that Ogg Vorbis will fade even further.

MP3 itself probably isn’t going anywhere, because it’s perfect for a number of practical uses, but its position as a carrier for music might be endangered. Companies such as Amazon are unlikely to stop distributing it any time soon, but consumer demand is going to swing toward quality rather than file size, and we see FLAC moving in—particularly if labels think they can charge a little more for better quality audio.