Convert WAV to MP3

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Converting WAV to MP3 is free: drop your WAV above, hit convert, and download the MP3. Files delete themselves within an hour.

Converting WAV to MP3 trades perfection for portability: your WAV keeps every sample it was born with, while MP3 is built for playing on anything with a speaker, from new phones to twenty-year-old car stereos. At a sensible bitrate the difference is genuinely hard to hear, but it's a one-way door: hold on to the WAV original if it's precious, because no MP3 can hand those samples back.

FYI

One-way door: MP3 is lossy, so this conversion throws data away to get small. Keep the WAV original if you might ever need full quality again.

Why flip WAV to MP3

WAV is audio with nothing taken away: every sample intact, every megabyte accounted for. It was born in 1991, Microsoft and IBM, and its real weak spot is being carried around: it refuses to shrink.

MP3 is the format that taught music to travel: small, scrappy, and welcome absolutely everywhere. MPEG-1 Audio Layer III. Perceptual coding: it throws away the parts of the signal your ear is least likely to miss. That makes it the right destination when what you need is playing on anything with a speaker, from new phones to twenty-year-old car stereos.

How to convert WAV to MP3

1
Drop your WAV file into the flipper above, or click to browse for it.
2
Check the output format: MP3 is already selected for you.
3
Hit Convert, give it a moment, then download your new MP3.

WAV vs MP3, side by side

	WAV	MP3
Born	1991, Microsoft and IBM	1993, Fraunhofer Institute, Germany
Type	audio · uncompressed	audio · lossy
Best for	recording, editing and mastering, where every last bit matters	playing on anything with a speaker, from new phones to twenty-year-old car stereos
Weak spot	being carried around: it refuses to shrink	holding fine detail at low bitrates: it stays small by quietly discarding sound
Typical size	about 10 MB per minute at CD quality: ten times the size of an MP3	about 1 MB per minute at 128 kbps: roughly a tenth of CD audio
Plays on	Universal on desktops and pro audio gear; clumsy on the mobile web.	Everything. Phones, browsers, cars, smart speakers, ancient iPods.

Questions people ask

Will converting WAV to MP3 lose quality?

A little, by design: MP3 is a lossy format. At 192 kbps or above most people can't tell the difference, but the discarded data can't be recovered later.

Will the MP3 file be bigger or smaller than my WAV?

Dramatically smaller. WAV runs about 10 MB per minute at CD quality: ten times the size of an MP3; MP3 comes in at about 1 MB per minute at 128 kbps: roughly a tenth of CD audio.

Where will the MP3 file play?

Everything. Phones, browsers, cars, smart speakers, ancient iPods. That's the usual reason people leave WAV behind: MP3 simply opens in more of the places that matter.

How long does WAV to MP3 conversion take?

Seconds for most files: audio is light work. A long recording might take a minute; your file auto-deletes from our servers within an hour either way.

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