What is the difference between AAC and M4A?

The major differences between AAC or Advanced Audio Codec and M4A are very easy to understand as they are not referring to the same thing. We are all familiar with a lot of codecs that are used to encode audio into different file sizes, AAC or Advanced Audio Codec is a perfect example. AAC has been around for some time now and has determined to put a stop to the long time reign of MP3, due to the fact that it is capable of producing audio files with quality sounds.

The major difference between AAC and M4A is that the former is usually stored using two formats, and the latter is just one of these file formats or file extensions. This means while AAC is a codec for encoding audio into smaller file sizes, M4A is just one of the file extensions used for AAC. Since AAC can also be used to encode audio for mp4 videos, M4A is being used as its file extension so that we can easily differentiate between the real audio files and the ones that come from mp4 videos.

In lossy compression codecs that are used for encoding audio into smaller sizes is called MP3’s. MP3 is the most popular form of this. AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding, which is the supposed replacement for MP3 because of its improved form. AAC is the audio encoding scheme. M4A is a file extension.

The better the sound quality that it produces, especially at very low bitrates, AAC is starting to propel to the top in the world of technology. As support for the encoding scheme gradually emerges in mobile phones and portable media players. As with all new technology, it would not be surprising for AAC to dominate the scene and leave MP3’s in the dust.