Musepack (.mpc)
Also known as: Musepack, .mpc file, MPC audio, MusePack
Musepack (.mpc) is an open, lossy audio format optimized for high-quality music at higher bitrates. It has a dedicated audiophile following but limited device and app support, so it is far less common than MP3 or AAC.
- Open, lossy audio format tuned for music
- Audiophile niche; limited device support
- Convert to MP3 or AAC for portability
What Musepack is for
Musepack is a lossy compression format tuned for transparency at higher bitrates, where its designers aimed for quality very close to the original recording. It descends from an early MPEG audio variant and is free and open.
Like MP3, it discards audio data you are unlikely to hear to shrink files — but its encoder is optimized for music rather than speech.
Support and practicality
Musepack is mostly used by enthusiasts. Players like foobar2000 and VLC support it, but phones, car systems, and most mainstream apps do not. Converting to MP3 or AAC makes a collection portable.
For archiving with no quality loss, a lossless format such as FLAC is the more future-proof choice.