What is a WAV file?
WAV — audio brut non compressé
What is it?
WAV compresses nothing: it records the exact value of the signal, tens of thousands of times per second. It's sound as it is, with no filtering whatsoever.
This fidelity comes at a price: one minute of CD-quality stereo takes up about 10 MB. A full album exceeds half a gigabyte.
History & origin
Microsoft and IBM created WAV in 1991 for Windows, building on a generic container structure. Alongside Apple's AIFF, it is one of the two founding formats of digital audio.
It has barely changed since, and remains the reference format for recording studios.
Why it is useful
Flawless quality, with no compression artifacts whatsoever, and instant decoding that requires no processing.
Every audio editing program reads it natively: it's the common language of sound production.
Limits & drawbacks
A considerable file size, poorly suited to emailing or storing on a phone.
Metadata support is poor — a WAV file doesn't properly carry the title, artist, or cover art — and file size is capped at 4 GB, roughly six hours of audio.
Practical tips
Record and edit in WAV, distribute in MP3 or AAC. That's the right order: start from the best and scale down.
To archive losslessly while halving the file size, convert to FLAC instead: the quality is exactly the same, bit for bit.
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