WAV Audio Format

By Dan Hope

The WAV format, or Waveform audio format, is one of the most ubiquitous in the digital music industry. It was developed by IBM and Microsoft and is the standard audio format on the Windows operating system. Another abbreviation that commonly accompanies WAV is PCM. This stands for pulse-code modulation. The WAV format is becoming less popular for internet audio and music downloads because it does not usually use compressed audio and, therefore, the file sizes are usually larger than MP3 or AAC .

Many professionals still use WAV because it is a lossless codec that has excellent audio quality. And WAV is still in common use elsewhere because it is compatible with almost any media player and because it is simple. It is often used in audio file conversions because it is guaranteed to be compatible.

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