[linux-audio-user] Audio file format

[Robert Epprecht]

I have found a CD with audio files and would like to know what format
they are. (I know very little about different audio formats, sorry.)

The label on the CD says they are MP3, but the files have names like
1.wav 2.wav

mp3blaster 1.wav        Bad sound file format.

cp 1.wav /tmp/1.mp3
mp3blaster /tmp/1.mp3   Sound device control error.


play 1.wav              playing 1.wav
('play' plays the file and considering it's duration it is much too long
 to be a normal .wav file, IMHO)

file 1.wav
1.wav: RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft ADPCM, mono 44100 Hz


I thought WAVE was a format without compression? The duration of the files
(when played by 'play') shows that this is not possible. So what is it?

BTW: The file (loaded like a text file in emacs ;-) starts with
     RIFFBä^BWAVEfmt 2  (where ^B is *one* byte)


Thank you for sharing your knowledge,
Robert