Audio File Size Calculator
Estimate the size of an uncompressed PCM/WAV recording from its sample rate, bit depth, channels, and length.
10.09 MiB (binary, ÷ 1,048,576) · 1,411.2 kbps data rate
Uncompressed audio size is sample rate × (bit depth ÷ 8) × channels × seconds. One minute of CD-quality sound — 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo — is 44,100 × 2 × 2 × 60 = 10,584,000 bytes, which is about 10.58 MB (decimal) or 10.09 MiB (binary). Its data rate is 1,411.2 kbps.
How uncompressed audio size works
PCM audio — the raw format inside a WAV or AIFF file — stores an independent number for every sample of every channel, so its size is completely predictable. Multiply how many samples you take each second (the sample rate) by how many bytes each sample uses (the bit depth ÷ 8), then by the number of channels and the length in seconds. There is no compression and no guessing: the same settings always produce the same byte count.
Sample rate is in Hz, bit depth in bits; the data rate in kbps = sample rate × bit depth × channels ÷ 1000
Worked example
One minute of CD-quality audio: 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo (2 channels).
- 1 Convert the length to seconds. 1 minute × 60 = 60 seconds.
- 2 Find the bytes per sample. 16 bits ÷ 8 = 2 bytes for each sample of each channel.
- 3 Multiply everything together. 44,100 × 2 × 2 × 60 = 10,584,000 bytes.
- 4 Convert bytes to MB (decimal). 10,584,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 10.58 MB.
- 5 Convert bytes to MiB (binary). 10,584,000 ÷ 1,048,576 ≈ 10.09 MiB.
- 6 Check the data rate. 44,100 × 16 × 2 ÷ 1000 = 1,411.2 kbps.
Common uncompressed formats
Stereo PCM at each quality level. MB is decimal (÷ 1,000,000); the data rate stays constant regardless of length.
| Format | Sample rate | Bit depth | Data rate | MB per minute |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CD | 44,100 Hz | 16-bit | 1,411.2 kbps | 10.58 MB |
| DVD / studio | 48,000 Hz | 24-bit | 2,304 kbps | 17.28 MB |
| Hi-res | 96,000 Hz | 24-bit | 4,608 kbps | 34.56 MB |
Reading the results
This is uncompressed PCM. The numbers here describe raw WAV/AIFF audio, where every sample is stored in full. Lossy formats such as MP3 and AAC throw away data your ears are unlikely to notice, so a 10.58 MB minute of WAV becomes roughly 1 MB as a 128 kbps MP3 — about a tenth of the size. Lossless compressors like FLAC or ALAC land in between, typically shaving 40–60% without changing the audio.
MB versus MiB. A megabyte (MB) is 1,000,000 bytes; a mebibyte (MiB) is 1,048,576 bytes (2²⁰). Storage and file managers disagree on which to show — that is why the same file can read as “10.58 MB” in one place and “10.09 MiB” in another. It is a labeling difference, not a change in the actual bytes.