Lossless Audio

Lossless Audio Definition - What is Lossless Audio?

When a piece of audio is converted to a digital file format, sometimes the audio is compressed in order to reduce file size. When compression happens, frequencies at the very highest and lowest ends of a recording can be lost, which results in the term "lossy audio" When frequencies are not lost, and a digital copy of a piece is identical to the original recording, this is referred to as "lossless" audio. Types of lossy formats include MP3, MP4, WMA, and AAC. Lossless audio formats include WAV files, AIFF, and FLAC. These formats store the exact waveform of a piece of audio, and while they may use compression to compress the data that is stored, the data still contains the entirety of the waveform.