Which Audio Formats Does Astra Support?

Astra plays FLAC, MP3, WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, OPUS, WMA, AIFF, ALAC, APE, WavPack, and IAMF natively, with an FFmpeg fallback covering everything else. That list is broad enough that most local libraries will play without conversion — including the lossless and niche formats that trip up players built around streaming catalogs.

Native format support

These formats are handled by Astra's own playback path, from file to DAC:

If your collection is built from CD rips, Bandcamp downloads, or decades of accumulated files, the native list alone likely covers it. The inclusion of APE and WavPack matters specifically for people with older or archival libraries, since those formats are often skipped by mainstream players.

What the FFmpeg fallback covers

Anything outside the native list is routed through FFmpeg. In practice this means obscure or legacy formats still play, but through a different decode path than the native formats. For a normal library, you may never notice the difference — the fallback exists so that an unusual file doesn't become a dead end.

Why format support matters for a local library

Astra is built for people who still keep a music library rather than streaming. That framing explains the format list: it prioritizes the formats that accumulate in personal collections over years — lossless rips, old encodes, and files from defunct stores. If your library is a folder of mixed FLAC and MP3, it plays as-is.

Playback behavior that affects format choice

Format support isn't only about whether a file opens. Two related behaviors matter when you're deciding what to keep:

• Gapless playback — transitions are pre-buffered with no crossfade, so albums mastered as continuous works (live records, DJ mixes, classical) flow without gaps. This depends on the file retaining its track boundaries, which standard rips do.
• Bit-perfect output — WASAPI Exclusive on Windows, CoreAudio HAL on macOS, and ALSA hw on Linux bypass the OS mixer. Your samples reach the DAC untouched, which is the point of keeping lossless files in the first place.

The practical takeaway: if you have FLAC or ALAC, Astra can deliver them unaltered to your DAC. If you have MP3 or AAC, they play natively too — you just won't gain anything from the bit-perfect path that lossy encoding already discarded.

Quick check for your own library

1. Look at the file extensions in your music folders.
2. If they're all in the native list above, no conversion is needed.
3. If you see something unusual, it will likely still play via the FFmpeg fallback.
4. If you care about output quality, keep lossless formats (FLAC, ALAC, APE, WavPack) for the bit-perfect path.

Astra is open source under GPL-3.0, so the exact decode behavior is inspectable if a specific format matters to you.