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MP3 vs WAV
WAV is uncompressed and about ten times larger: roughly 10 MB per minute of stereo. MP3 is lossy and small. Editing, mastering and hardware sampling need WAV. Listening, sharing and storage want MP3. Converting MP3 to WAV never restores what MP3 discarded.
Side by side
| Spec | MP3 | WAV |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Audio | Audio |
| Extensions | .mp3 | .wav |
| Introduced | 1993 | 1991 |
| Compression | Lossy | Uncompressed |
| MIME type | audio/mpeg | audio/wav |
| Use it when | Distributing audio that has to play anywhere without question: podcasts, voice recordings, music. | Recording, editing and mastering, or handing audio to someone who will process it further. |
| Avoid it when | Archiving or editing masters. Keep WAV or FLAC and export MP3 at the end. | Sending audio to listeners or over a network. Export MP3, AAC or FLAC. |
Where the usual answer breaks
Archiving. If you want a small file that is still lossless, neither wins. Use FLAC.
MP3
- Plays on virtually every device and player in existence
- Small files at acceptable quality
- ID3 tags for title, artist and artwork are widely understood
- Less efficient than AAC or Opus at the same bitrate
- Lossy, and re-encoding compounds the loss
- No native multichannel support in practice
WAV
- Completely lossless and uncompressed, ideal for editing
- No decode overhead, so it is fast to process
- Universally supported by audio software
- Very large files, around 10 MB per stereo minute at CD quality
- Metadata support is weak compared with MP3 or FLAC
- The classic format has a 4 GB file size ceiling
Convert between MP3 and WAV
Other comparisons
Last updated 2026-08-03