What is a .tta file?
True Audio Lossless File · Audio · Aleksander Djourik (Tau Software)
A .tta file is True Audio, a free lossless audio codec built for fast, simple compression of CD rips. It compresses less than FLAC's best settings but encodes quickly, and files start with the tag TTA1.
What is a .tta file used for?
TTA had its moment in the 2000s CD-archiving scene, often as one big album file plus a .cue sheet. It is lossless, so decoding restores the CD audio bit for bit, and it supports ID3 tags.
FLAC won that ecosystem battle: hardware and streaming support for TTA is thin today. The format still decodes fine in foobar2000, VLC and ffmpeg, which is also the conversion route to FLAC.
What opens a .tta file?
The .tta format opens in the following apps, grouped by operating system. If one app does not work, try another from the same list.
Windows
- foobar2000
- VLC
- AIMP
macOS
- VLC
- ffmpeg
Linux
- VLC
- DeaDBeeF
- ffmpeg
Open a .tta file step by step
- Confirm the file really is a .tta. Drop it into the WhatFileType identifier, which reads its signature in your browser without uploading anything.
- On Windows, open it with foobar2000 or VLC.
- On Mac, use VLC or ffmpeg.
- On Linux, try VLC or DeaDBeeF.
- Still stuck? Convert the .tta to flac, which opens more widely.
Why can't I open my .tta file?
Almost always because no installed app understands TTA. Install one of the apps above, or convert the file to a format your existing software already reads. If double-clicking opens the wrong program instead of nothing at all, the file association is set to the wrong app rather than the file being broken.
The other possibility is that the file is not really a .tta at all. Drop it into the file identifier to check it by its bytes instead of its name. Nothing is uploaded.
How to convert a .tta file
You can convert a .tta file to flac, wav, mp3 using a conversion tool or the export menu of an app that opens it.
What is the .tta file signature (magic bytes)?
A .tta file starts with the hex bytes 54 54 41 31, which read as TTA1 in ASCII. Programs identify TTA by those bytes, not by the filename, so a renamed file still gives itself away.
These are the documented signatures for TTA. For a full breakdown, see the TTA (True Audio) file signature page.
| Hex signature | Offset | ASCII | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54 54 41 31 | 0 | TTA1 | ASCII 'TTA1' |
See the full magic-numbers reference for every format.
Frequently asked questions
What is a .tta file?
A .tta file is True Audio, a free lossless audio codec built for fast, simple compression of CD rips. It compresses less than FLAC's best settings but encodes quickly, and files start with the tag TTA1.
How do I play a .tta file?
foobar2000 and VLC play TTA directly. For phones or hardware players, convert to FLAC first, which is lossless-to-lossless and costs no quality.
How do I split a single .tta album file into tracks?
Use the accompanying .cue sheet: foobar2000 or CUETools reads it and splits or converts the album into individual tracks.
Is TTA lossless?
Yes. Like FLAC and APE, decoding a .tta file reproduces the original audio exactly; the trade-off among them is speed versus compression ratio.
Related formats
Sources
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