File formats supported by the audio tag
When the tag first appeared, it sparked much debate between the various browser vendors as they could essentially choose what formats they wanted to supported. Mozilla especially was concerned about the licensing and potential patent problems it may have if it were to support the mp4 codec. So what’s the current state of things? Well it’s this — a little table explaining what browser supports what audio files using the tag.
| Format | IE 9 | IE 10 | Chrome | Firefox | Safari | Opera |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wave | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| MP3 | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Ogg | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| WebM | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |||
| M4A | ✔ |
By looking at this table you would think that Wave is a clear winner. Sadly, your file size will be huge, upsetting everyone. It’s also worth noting that IE 9+ can play WebM audio using a plug-in. At least we can be grateful that we never have to use RealAudio anymore.