Audio file size calculator
Uncompressed audio has an exactly predictable size: sample rate times bit depth times channels times seconds.
Hz
bits
minutes
kbit/s
Uncompressed size
86.400MB
- Compressed size
- 9.600 MB
- Compression ratio
- 9.00
- Uncompressed bitrate
- 2 304 000 bit/s
- Megabytes per minute
- 17.280
- Highest representable frequency
- 24 000 Hz
Show the working
- Sample rate = 48 000
- Bit depth = 24
- Channels = 2
- Duration = 5
- Compressed bitrate = 256
- Uncompressed bitrate = 48 000 * 24 * 2 = 2 304 000
- seconds = 5 * 60 = 300
- bytes = 2 304 000 * 300 / 8 = 86 400 000
- Uncompressed size = 86 400 000 / 1e6 = 86.4
- Megabytes per minute = 86.4 / 5 = 17.28
- Compressed size = 256 * 1000 * 300 / 8 / 1e6 = 9.6
- Compression ratio = 9.6 > 0 ? 86.4 / 9.6 : 0 = 9
- Highest representable frequency = 48 000 / 2 = 24 000
Values are shown to six significant figures here; the arithmetic itself runs on exact fractions and is only rounded where a number is printed.
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The formula
- bitrate = sample rate x bit depth x channels
- bytes = bitrate x seconds / 8
- Nyquist limit = sample rate / 2
CD audio is 44 100 Hz, 16 bit, stereo — 1.4112 Mbit/s, or about 10 MB per minute.
The Nyquist limit is why 44.1 kHz was chosen: it covers the 20 kHz top of human hearing with room for the anti-alias filter.