By Tim King · Updated 17 September 2026

Audio Bitrate Calculator

kbps From Sample Rate and Bit Depth, With WAV File Size Per Minute

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Sample rate (Hz)

Bit depth

Channels

Length to size (minutes)

Result

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How the Audio Bitrate Calculator works

This audio bitrate calculator works out the numbers behind any recording format. Pick a sample rate and bit depth, enter the number of channels and the calculator gives the uncompressed bitrate in kilobits per second, the data it produces per second, minute and hour, and the size of a recording of any length. It also shows the highest frequency the sample rate can capture and the theoretical dynamic range of the bit depth, and compares the figure with a 320 kbps MP3. The table covers the usual formats from phone audio to hi-res and multitrack.

Audio bitrate calculator: sizing storage and bandwidth before you record

Uncompressed digital audio is a fixed stream of numbers, so its data rate never depends on what is being recorded. Silence and a full orchestra cost exactly the same. That makes the bitrate completely predictable. Check it before a long recording fills a card or a session outgrows a drive.

The formula

Bitrate (bits per second) = sample rate × bit depth × channels.

Bytes per second = bitrate ÷ 8. File size = bytes per second × seconds.

Two related figures come from the same inputs. The highest frequency a sample rate can capture is half the rate (the Nyquist limit). The theoretical dynamic range of integer PCM is about 6.02 dB per bit. The calculator reports sizes in decimal units, so 1 MB is 1,000,000 bytes, as drive makers count; Windows shows binary units, about 5% smaller.

Worked examples

The first example is the default: 44,100 Hz, 16-bit, 2 channels, 60 minutes. That is 44,100 × 16 × 2 = 1,411,200 bits per second, or 1,411.2 kbps. It fills 176 kB a second, 10.6 MB a minute and 635 MB an hour, and is 4.4× the data of a 320 kbps MP3. The Nyquist limit is 22.05 kHz and the dynamic range 96.3 dB.

The second example is a live gig recorded on a 24-channel desk at 48 kHz and 24 bits for 90 minutes. The bitrate is 27,648 kbps, which is 207.4 MB a minute and 18.66 GB for the set. A 64 GB card holds about five hours of it, so a festival day needs two cards or a drive.

How many megabytes per minute for each format?

Per hour is the figure to check against a card or drive. Uncompressed PCM data rates by format, in decimal units

Format	Sample rate (Hz)	Bits	Channels	kbps	Per minute	Per hour
Telephone	8,000	8	1	64	480 kB	28.8 MB
Wideband voice	16,000	16	1	256	1.9 MB	115.2 MB
Speech, low bandwidth	22,050	16	1	352.8	2.6 MB	158.8 MB
32 kHz stereo	32,000	16	2	1,024	7.7 MB	460.8 MB
Podcast mono	44,100	16	1	705.6	5.3 MB	317.5 MB
CD	44,100	16	2	1,411.2	10.6 MB	635 MB
CD rate, 24-bit	44,100	24	2	2,116.8	15.9 MB	952.6 MB
Video / broadcast	48,000	16	2	1,536	11.5 MB	691.2 MB
Studio	48,000	24	2	2,304	17.3 MB	1.04 GB
Studio, 32-bit float	48,000	32	2	3,072	23 MB	1.38 GB
Hi-res 88.2	88,200	24	2	4,233.6	31.8 MB	1.91 GB
Hi-res 96	96,000	24	2	4,608	34.6 MB	2.07 GB
Hi-res 96, float	96,000	32	2	6,144	46.1 MB	2.76 GB
Hi-res 176.4	176,400	24	2	8,467.2	63.5 MB	3.81 GB
Hi-res 192	192,000	24	2	9,216	69.1 MB	4.15 GB
First-order ambisonics	48,000	24	4	4,608	34.6 MB	2.07 GB
5.1 surround	48,000	24	6	6,912	51.8 MB	3.11 GB
7.1 surround	48,000	24	8	9,216	69.1 MB	4.15 GB
16-track session	48,000	24	16	18,432	138.2 MB	8.29 GB
24-track session	48,000	24	24	27,648	207.4 MB	12.44 GB
64-track session	48,000	24	64	73,728	553 MB	33.18 GB

How to read the result

Bitrate is in kilobits per second, with megabits in brackets for comparing against network speeds.
Data per second, per minute / per hour and the minutes uncompressed line are storage figures in bytes.
Compared with 320 kbps MP3 shows how much a lossy encoder saves. A lossless codec such as FLAC typically lands around half to two-thirds of the uncompressed figure, depending on the music.
Highest frequency captured is the Nyquist limit. Human hearing tops out near 20 kHz.
Dynamic range is the theoretical ratio between full scale and the quantisation noise floor for integer samples.

Where these formats come from

44.1 kHz and 16 bits were fixed by the Red Book CD standard in 1980. 48 kHz is the rate for film, television and the AES3 digital audio interface. 8 kHz is the G.711 telephone standard, and 16 kHz is the usual input for speech recognition. Hi-res rates are multiples of these two.

Tips and pitfalls

32-bit usually means float. Recorders and DAWs that record 32-bit use floating point, whose range is effectively unlimited. The 192.6 dB shown applies to 32-bit integers, not float.
Leave headroom on cards. File systems reserve space and FAT32 caps files at 4 GB, so plan on using about 90% of a card.
Higher rates rarely help playback. They matter for heavy pitch-shifting, not listening.
Channels multiply everything. A 24-channel session is twelve times a stereo mix.

To convert a recording, use audio to WAV. To time delays and reverbs to tempo, use BPM to milliseconds. The note frequency calculator gives the pitch of any note against the Nyquist limit shown here.

Sources: NIST prefixes for binary multiples.

Checked against: 5 Mbps for 60 seconds = 37.5 MB

FAQ

What is the bitrate of CD quality audio?

1,411 kbps: 44,100 samples per second × 16 bits × 2 channels. That is 176 kB per second, 10.6 MB per minute and about 635 MB per hour, so a full 74-minute CD carries roughly 780 MB of audio data.

How big is a WAV file per minute?

Multiply the bitrate by 60 and divide by 8 for bytes. CD quality is 10.6 MB per minute, 48 kHz 24-bit stereo is 17.3 MB per minute, and 96 kHz 24-bit stereo is 34.6 MB per minute. The calculator gives the figure for any combination and any length.

Does a higher sample rate sound better?

Not audibly for playback. 44.1 and 48 kHz already capture everything up to the limit of hearing. Higher rates are useful when audio will be slowed down or heavily processed, and for some measurement work, but they double or quadruple storage for no gain in ordinary listening.

What is the difference between bitrate and bit depth?

Bit depth is the number of bits in each sample and sets the dynamic range. Bitrate is the total data per second, which combines bit depth with sample rate and channel count. Compressed formats quote a bitrate directly because they no longer have a fixed bit depth.

How much smaller is an MP3 than a WAV?

A 320 kbps MP3 carries about 4.4 times less data than CD-quality PCM; a 128 kbps MP3 about eleven times less. The result includes a comparison line against 320 kbps so you can see the ratio for whatever format you enter.