A three-minute MP3 encoded at a variable bit rate (VBR) averaging 211 kbps (kilobytes-per-second) can be around 5MB in size. A high-quality WAV file of the same song is nearly 10 times that at 45MB in size.
Is MP3 better than WAV?
As a result, WAV files objectively have better quality and provide more true and accurate audio clips. Better WAV vs MP3 quality comes with a tradeoff. You might get amazing sound effects, but uncompressed WAV files are substantially larger than their MP3 counterparts.
Why is WAV file larger than MP3?
Simply put, a WAV file (which is PCM audio) is storing much more data than the MP3 file is. MPEG-1 Layer 3 (and many other lossy audio compression codecs) use a different method for encoding audio. Rather than measuring pressure over time, they measure frequency components over a time.
How big is a WAV file Song?
File size – WAV files are large. A stereo, CD quality recording (44.1khz, 16-bit), works out at 10.09 MB per minute. Moving up to 48kHz 24-bit stereo (which will improve both the frequency range and the available dynamic range) will increase file size to 16.48 MB per minute.