Timeline of audio formats
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An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content—in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its wider use usually refers to the physical method used to store the data. Note on the use of analog compared to digital in this list; the definition of digital used here for early formats is that which is represented using discrete values rather than fluctuating variables. A piano roll is digital as it has discrete values, that being a hole for each key, unlike a phonograph record which is analog with a fluctuating groove.
Music is recorded and distributed using a variety of audio formats, some of which store additional information.
Timeline of audio format developments
| Year | Physical media formats | Recording formats |
|---|---|---|
| 1805 | Panharmonicon | Digital, automated sound reproducing machine. |
| 1810s | Organ Cob | Mechanical digital, also known as a barrel organ. Nails in wooden cylinder actuate mechanical parts of organ. |
| 1817 | Apollonicon | Digital, automated sound reproducing machine. |
| 1851 | Piano Cylinder | Digital, automatically played by means of revolving cylinders |
| 1877 | Tinfoil Phonograph | In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the first recorder that could also play back Analog; sound waveform transcribed to tinfoil |
| 1883 | Piano roll | A piano roll used in a player piano Digital (vacuum-operated piano) |
| 1886 | Music Box disc | 8'' disc for playback on a music box Digital (vacuum-operated music box) |
| Late 1880s | Brown Wax cylinder | A collection of brown wax cylinders, vertical-groove Analog; vertical groove, vertical stylus motion – could be re-recorded |
| Ediphone, Dictaphone | A Dictaphone cylinder for voice recording Analog, the Ediphone and subsequent wax cylinders used in Edison's other product lines continued to be sold up until 1929 when the Edison Manufacturing Company folded. | |
| 1894 | Pathé cylinder | The vertical-groove pathé cylinder Mechanical analog; vertical grooves, vertical stylus motion |
| 1897 | 78rpm Record (Emile Berliner Patent) | 78rpm record - playable on modern turntables Mechanical analog; lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion – early examples made from hard rubber, most made from shellac. |
| 1898 | Wire recording | A Peirce 55-B dictation wire recorder from 1945 Analog; magnetization; DC bias |
| 1902 | Edison Gold Moulded Record | Edison's "gold moulded" black wax cylinder record Mechanical analog; vertical groove, horizontal stylus motion – made from hard black wax – 160rpm standard – 100 threads per inch |
| 1903 | Phonograph Postcard | A phonograph post card, playable on 78rpm turntables Mechanical analog; lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion |
| 1905 | Centre-start phonograph Record | A modern vinyl LP with a centre-start cut Mechanical analog; lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion, starts from the centre of the disc |
| Pathé disc | The vertical-groove pathé disc Mechanical analog; vertical groove, vertical stylus motion. Alternative to 78s manufactured by Pathé Records, Brunswick Records and Grey Gull Records. | |
| 1908 | 2-minute or Amberol Cylinder Record | The Edison "Amberol" cylinder record, vertical groove Mechanical analog; vertical groove, vertical stylus motion – made from hard black wax – 160rpm standard – 200 threads per inch. Best known are the later 12-inch Amberols, which came out in 1912. |
| 1912 | Diamond Disc | The Edison vertical-groove "diamond disc" Mechanical analog; vertical groove, vertical stylus motion – made from Bakelite or china clay |
| 1924 | Electrical cut 78 | Mechanical analog; electrically cut from amplified microphone signal, lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion, most at now standardized 78rpm A record player for electrical cut 78s can play acoustic 78s, but one should not play electrical cut 78s on a record player meant for acoustic 78s. |
| 1930 | Filmophone flexible record | A red Filmophone record Mechanical analog; lateral groove, horizontal stylus movement – made from cellulose of various colours – 78rpm |
| Durium Record or Hit of the Week Records | A brown Durium 78rpm record Mechanical analog; lateral groove – made from paper coated in a brown resin (Durium) | |
| 1930s | Reel-to-reel, magnetic tape | Studio master tape reel Analog; magnetization; AC "bias" dramatically increases linearity/fidelity, tape speed at 30 ips, later 15 ips and other refined speeds: 7+1⁄2 ips, 3+3⁄4 ips, 1+7⁄8 ips |
| Electrical transcriptions | Mechanical analog; electrically cut from amplified microphone signal, high fidelity sound, lateral or vertical groove, horizontal or vertical stylus motion, most discs 16" at 33+1⁄3rpm | |
| 1942 | SoundScriber | Green, vertical groove Sound Scriber disks Mechanical analog; vertical groove, 4–6 inch discs, it recorded sound by pressing grooves into soft vinyl discs |
| 1947 | Dictabelt (Memobelt) | Red dictabelt. Analog, medium consisting of a thin, plastic belt 3.5" wide that was placed on a cylinder and rotated like a tank tread, developed by the Dictaphone company in 1947 |
| 1948 | 33.3 RPM LP record (Columbia) | An early 10 inch LP Analog, with preemphasis and other equalization techniques (LP, RIAA); lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion; discs 7", 10" and 12" at 33+1⁄3rpm, 1st LP Columbia ML 4001 Milstein, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto |
| 1949 | Vinyl 45 record (RCA) | A 7'' 45rpm record Analog 45rpm vinyl 7" disk, first 45 pressed "PeeWee the Piccolo" RCA 47-0147 Indianapolis |
| 1950 | Tefifon | A stand-alone Tefifon player with cartridge loaded Electro–mechanical analog, vinyl belt housed in a cassette, used an embossing technique using a stylus to imprint the information, was the first thing to resemble a modern audio cassette |
| 16 2/3rpm vinyl record | A label close-up on a 16rpm vinyl Mechanical analog; lateral groove, horizontal stylus motion – played at half the regular speed of an LP | |
| 1951 | Minifon P55 | Minifon cassette Analog, magnetic wire on reel, 30cm/s or about 11.8ips was quickly adopted by many governments as being the ultimate "spy" recorder of its day |
| 1957 | Stereophonic vinyl record | An early stereo record label Analog, with pre-emphasis and other equalization techniques. Combination lateral/vertical stylus motion with each channel encoded 45 degrees to the vertical |
| Dictet | Cassette for the Dictaphone Dictet dictation machine Analog, 1⁄4 tape, 2.48 in/s, (3-inch reels housed 5.875 × 3 × .4375 inch cassette), developed by the Dictaphone Corp | |
| 1958 | RCA tape cartridge (Sound Tape) (Magazine Loading Cartridge) | The cassette format created by RCA Analog, 1⁄4 inch wide tape (stereo & mono), 3+3⁄4 in/s & 1.875 in/s, one of the first attempts to offer reel-to-reel tape recording quality in a convenient format for the consumer market |
| 1959 | NAB Cart Tape (Fidelipac) | The cartridge known as a "Fidelipac" Analog, 1⁄4 inch wide tape in cartridge, 7+1⁄2 in/s & 15 in/s, Introduced in 1959 by Collins Radio, the cart tape format was designed for use by radio broadcasters to play commercials, bumpers and announcements |
| Synchrofax Sound Paper | Magnetic coating on paper. | |
| 1961 | Orrtronic Tapette. | Analog, endless tape cartridge. |
| 1962 | 4-Track (Muntz Stereo-Pak) | 4 track player with cartridge Analog, 1⁄4-inch-wide (6.4mm) tape, 3+3⁄4 in/s, endless-loop cartridge |
| 1963 | Compact cassette | Variants of the Compact Cassette Analog, with bias. 0.15 inches (3.81mm) tape, 1+7⁄8 ips. 1970: introduced Dolby noise reduction |
| 1964 | Sanyo Micro Pack 35 Channel Master 6546 Westinghouse H29R1 | The micro pack recording system, intended for dictation 1⁄4 inch wide tape housed in a transparent cartridge measuring 2.6 × 2.9 × 1.9 inches, tape was stored on two reels residing atop one another, keeping the cartridge compact |
| Sabamobil | Sabamobil tape cartridge A cartridge format for embedding and easy handling usual 3-inch-tape-reels with 1⁄4 inch tape, compatible to reel-to-reel audio recording in 3+3⁄4 ips. | |
| 1965 | 8-Track (Stereo-8) | The inside of an 8-track cartridge Analog, 1⁄4 inch wide tape, 3+3⁄4 in/s, endless-loop cartridge |
| DC-International cassette system | DC-International cassette Analog cassette format introduced by Grundig, Telefunken and Blaupunkt: 120 × 77 × 12mm cassette with 1⁄4 inch wide tape run at 5.08cm per second. | |
| 1966 | PlayTape | Two PlayTape cartridges Analog, 1⁄8 inch wide tape, endless-loop cartridge, introduced by Frank Stanton |
| 1969 | Microcassette | A comparison of sizes for the Microcassette and Minicassette Analog, 1⁄8 inch wide tape, used generally for note taking, mostly mono, some stereo (developed in the early '80s). 2.4cm/s or 1.2cm/s |
| Minicassette | A Minicassette on top of a Compact Cassette. Analog, 1⁄8 inch wide tape, used generally for note taking, 1.2 cm/s | |
| 1970 | Quadraphonic 8-Track (Quad-8) (Q8) | A Quadraphonic 8-Track Cartridge Analog, 1⁄4 inch wide tape, 3+3⁄4 in/s, 4-channel stereo, endless-loop cartridge |
| 1971 | Quadraphonic Vinyl Record (CD-4) (SQ Matrix) | An SQ quadraphonic record Analog, introduced by CBS Records for matrix and RCA / JVC for CD-4 Recorded two tracks on both stereo channels, requiring a decoder to hear all four tracks. Despite this, the format is playable on any LP turntable. |
| 1971 | HiPac | Analog, a successor of the 1966 PlayTape, using tape width of the 1963 Compact Cassette, Japan only |
| 1976 | Dolby Stereo cinema surround sound | Analog |
| Elcaset | Elcaset (left) compared to a typical compact cassette (right) Analog, name comes from "L-Cassette/Large Cassette" | |
| 1982 | Compact Disc (CD-DA) | A CD. Digital. Linear PCM (LPCM) |
| 1986 | High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) | An HDCD album Digital. Redbook compatible physical CD containing 20–24 bit information (uses linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM)) |
| 1987 | Digital Audio Tape (DAT) | A DAT tape Digital. This audio format famously caused controversy among recording companies when released due to the potential of perfect digital copies to increase piracy |
| 1988 | AIFF (file format) | Digital. Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) |
| 1992 | Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) | A Digital Compact Cassette Digital, 1⁄8 inch wide tape, 1+7⁄8in/s, introduced by Philips and Matsushita in late 1992, marketed as the successor to the standard analog compact cassette |
| WAV (file format) | Digital. Named after the waveform created by a sound wave. | |
| Dolby Digital Cinema Sound | Digital. Also known as Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. | |
| MiniDisc (MD) | A red, translucent MiniDisc cartridge Digital. Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) | |
| 1993 | DTS, SDDS, MP3 (file formats) | A photo of a theatrical DTS CD-ROM disc used for the original 1993 release of Jurassic Park Digital. Digital Theatre System (DTS), Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS), MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (MP3) |
| 1994 | TwinVQ | Digital. |
| 1995 | RealAudio | |
| 1997 | DTS-CD | Digital. DTS audio |
| 1998 | WavPack (file format) | Digital. PCM, lossless compression (2002 hybrid compression) (2016 DSD support) |
| 1999 | DVD-Audio | Digital. Including Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP), Linear PCM (LPCM), Dolby Digital (AC-3) and Digital Theatre System (DTS) |
| Super Audio CD (SACD) | Digital. Direct Stream Digital | |
| WMA (file format) | Digital. Windows Media Audio | |
| TTA (file format) | Digital. The True Audio Lossless Codec. | |
| 2000 | FLAC (file format) | Digital. Free Lossless Audio Codec (open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free) |
| Ogg Vorbis (file format) | Digital. Vorbis compressed audio format (open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free) | |
| DSDIFF (file format) | Digital. DSD, optional DST compression | |
| APE (file format) | Digital. Monkey's Audio | |
| 2001 | AAC (file format) | Digital. Advanced Audio Coding |
| 2002 | WSD (file format) | Digital. DSD |
| 2004 | ALE or ALAC (file formats) | Digital. Apple Lossless |
| 2005 | DSF (file format) | Digital. DSD |
| 2008 | slotMusic | A SlotMusic microSD card: an early attempt to sell pre-recorded music on an SD card Digital. Usually at 320kbit/s MP3 on microSD or microSDHC. |
| Blu-spec CD | Digital. PCM | |
| 2012 | Opus (file format) | Digital. Opus lossy audio coding format (IETF standard, open, non-proprietary, royalty-free) |
| 2016 | Blu-Ray HFPA | Digital. Audio-only version of Blu-Ray. |