WAV to OGG for Podcasts

Podcasters hit this specific conversion because recording sessions is where the WAV came from — a remote guest, a field recording, a clip — and WAV is uncompressed, so files are enormous — an hour of audio runs past 600 MB. For a show you need OGG, so the WAV-to-OGG step is part of the edit, not an afterthought.

OGG is what you publish — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and every RSS-based host expect it. The order matters more than the format: record and edit on a lossless file, and encode the OGG once, from the finished episode. Converting early means every later edit sits on top of lossy audio and your export adds another generation on top of that.

Podcast bitrates are lower than most people assume, deliberately. 128 kbps stereo is the widely used standard, and 64–96 kbps mono is entirely respectable for pure speech — it roughly halves the download for every listener, which adds up across a back catalogue and matters to anyone on limited mobile data. Reserve 192 kbps and above for shows where music genuinely carries the experience.

Mono is the decision most worth revisiting. If your episode is voices with no meaningful stereo image — which describes most interview and solo shows — mono at 96 kbps is perceptually equivalent to stereo at 192 and half the size. Publishing stereo by default is a habit, not a requirement. And archive the lossless edit: social clips, best-of segments, and fixes should always be cut from that, never from the published file.

Expect roughly 8× smaller: WAV runs about 10 MB per minute, OGG about 1.2. Because WAV is uncompressed, this is the ideal encode: the encoder sees the complete original signal, so the OGG is the cleanest that audio can produce.

Most people meet WAV through recording sessions. It is a fine format there; the trouble is that WAV is uncompressed, so files are enormous — an hour of audio runs past 600 MB. OGG is the destination because it plays essentially everywhere — game assets and every ordinary phone, browser, and player. WAV costs you around 10 MB for every minute; OGG asks for about 1.2. Over a long recording that gap is the whole reason to convert. Because WAV is uncompressed, encoding to OGG here is the clean, single-generation case — the encoder sees the whole original signal, so this OGG is as good as the format gets.