The quality of the sound represented in the file depends on the sampling frequency, the accuracy of sample encoding, and whether the recording is in Mono or Stereo mode.
See Sound Files Structure
The file size also depends on these values. For example, 20 seconds of sound sampled at 44100 Hz, in stereo, and with 16-bit encoding corresponds to 3.52 MB of disk space.
| 11025 Hz | 22050 Hz | 44100 Hz | ||
| Mono | 8 bits | 10 KB/sec. | 21 KB/sec. | 43 KB/sec. |
| 16 bits | 21 KB/sec. | 43 KB/sec. | 86 KB/sec. | |
| Stereo | 8 bits | 21 KB/sec. | 43 KB/sec. | 86 KB/sec. |
| 16 bits | 46 KB/sec. | 86 KB/sec. | 172 KB/sec. |