Convert WAV, which is sound written down as numbers, tens of thousands a second.
No compression, no tricks. A WAV measures the height of the sound wave at fixed moments and stores each measurement as a number. How often it measures, and how precisely, decides both the quality and the file size. Change them and watch the wave.
A basic WAV is a short header followed by the samples. The header holds your settings from above, in a fixed order. Each block is sized by its bytes; click one (the narrow 2-byte ones too) to see what it says for your current choice.
The size field in the header is 32 bits, so a WAV tops out at 4 GB. With your settings, that's the recording length below. Longer sessions need a successor format, or a compressed one.
WAV is a RIFF file: a list of four-letter chunks. Players only need “fmt ” and “data”, but recorders and DAWs add broadcast metadata, cue points, loop markers and peak caches. Drop a WAV to walk every chunk, check its format for problems, and measure the audio itself. The sample is a real broadcast WAV with bext, cue, LIST and a 24-bit tone, built in your browser.
fmt every WAVCodec, channels, sample rate, bit depth, block alignment.dataevery WAVThe samples themselves, interleaved by channel.factcompressed or float WAVNumber of sample frames per channel.bextbroadcast recorders, Pro ToolsEBU Broadcast Wave: description, originator, date, time reference, loudness.iXMLfield recordersXML with scene, take, track names and timecode.LISTWindows, editorsINFO sub-chunks (INAM title, IART artist, ICMT comment, ISFT software).cue editorsMarker positions in sample frames.smplsamplersMIDI root note and loop start/end points.acidACID, AbletonTempo, beats and root note for loops.PEAKLogic, AuditionCached peak levels for fast waveform display.JUNKrecordersPlaceholder space so a ds64 chunk can be written later without moving the audio.ds64RF64 / BW6464-bit sizes for files over 4 GB (EBU Tech 3306, ITU-R BS.2088).Identification, limits and variants, from Microsoft and IBM's 1991 RIFF specification and its successors.
FLAC keeps every number; MP3 and M4A keep what you can hear.