What is the difference between a .wav and an .mp3 file?

WAV files are uncompressed and have a full frequency response, where as MP3 files are lossy and compressed. MP3 compression techniques are used to reduce data size for storage, handling, and transmitting content.

WAV files are of course better quality, and I recommend those when possible… but sometimes this can be inconvenient, take a lot longer to download, and take up more storage space on your devices. If you purchase a WAV file here, please be patient with the extra time it takes to download, depending on the speed of your internet. Your download may timeout if your download speed isn’t sufficient.

Gaearth Dreaming, for example, has an additional DVD of the CD music for the best quality sound (next to Super Audio — see Color of Sound CD.) DVDs can hold more information than CDs, so they can be encoded with the quality used during the recording process vs The Super Audio Disc with a sample rate of 64x that of standard CDs. Super Audio Discs are also playable on standard CD players.

Please see our CD page if you would like to purchase a physical album. MP3 and WAV options are below.