code: public static boolean matches(AudioFormat format1,
              AudioFormat format2) {
  		//$$fb 19 Dec 99: endian must be checked, too.
          //
          // we do have a problem with redundant elements:
          // e.g.
          // encoding=ALAW || ULAW -> bigEndian and samplesizeinbits don't matter
          // sample size in bits == 8 -> bigEndian doesn't matter
          // sample size in bits > 8 -> PCM is always signed.
          // This is an overall issue in JavaSound, I think.
          // At present, it is not consistently implemented to support these
          // redundancies and implicit definitions
          //
          // As a workaround of this issue I return in the converters
          // all combinations, e.g. for ULAW I return bigEndian and !bigEndian formats.
  /* old version
           */
          // as proposed by florian
          return format1.getEncoding().equals(format2.getEncoding())
                  && (format2.getSampleSizeInBits() <= 8
                  || format1.getSampleSizeInBits() == AudioSystem.NOT_SPECIFIED
                  || format2.getSampleSizeInBits() == AudioSystem.NOT_SPECIFIED
                  || format1.isBigEndian() == format2.isBigEndian())
                  && doMatch(format1.getChannels(), format2.getChannels())
                  && doMatch(format1.getSampleSizeInBits(), format2.getSampleSizeInBits())
                  && doMatch(format1.getFrameSize(), format2.getFrameSize())
                  && doMatch(format1.getSampleRate(), format2.getSampleRate())
                  && doMatch(format1.getFrameRate(), format2.getFrameRate());
      }
docs: and a AudioFormat.Encoding.matches method.