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WAV is a common audio file format introduced by Microsoft and IBM in 1991. It is a lossless format that is easy to edit and manipulate. However, it is not practical for portable players due to its large size. MP3 has taken its place as a compressed, lossy format. WAV is still used for music files where space is not an issue.
A waveform audio file, also known as a wave file, or simply WAV after its extension, is a common type of audio file. Microsoft and IBM introduced the format in 1991 for use in the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system (OS). Long before digital audio became a staple, computer users were exposed to the WAV file as an embedded audio file that played a music box-like sound when the Windows operating system started.
This file format is based on the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), which stores audio files in indexed “chunk” and “sub-chunk”. RIFF is, in turn, based on the earlier Interchange File Format (IFF), established by Electronic Arts in 1985 for use in electronic games. Apple’s version, known as the Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF), was released in 1988 for Macintosh computers. Due to the common roots of these various audio formats, however, audio files will play on any computer system, IBM or Apple.
The WAV file had two very important things when it was introduced. First, it could digitize sounds that are 100% faithful to the original source because it is a lossless format. “Lossless” means that the file format does not compromise audio quality even when it contains compressed data. Second, the format is very easy to edit and manipulate with software. Luckily for audiophiles, free audio editing software has been around for nearly as long as WAV files themselves.
While this format was ideal for sound effects, it had a disadvantage when it came to music files. A four-minute song could easily consume over 35 megabytes (MB) of space when saved as a WAV. Although the cost of hard drives has decreased over the years, the format was still too large for portable players with limited flash memory, which would become ubiquitous in the new millennium. Also, these files weren’t the most practical format to transfer online, especially over slow dial-up connections.
Instead, the compressed MP3 format has taken the place of audio because songs saved in this format are much smaller. The MP3 format is a lossy format, however, which means that the smallest file size has some loss in audio quality. While the MP3 format is well suited to portable players, many people still store their major digital libraries as WAV files. This way, the file can be used as a master for creating other types of audio files (including MP3s), while remaining preserved for direct listening or burning to compact disc (CD).
Today, the WAV file format is still widely used to store music files in a lossless format where space is not an issue. Some CD and DVD players can also read these files when saved directly to a disc. More often than not, the software that burns the files to CD converts them to the Compact Disk Audio (.cda) format in the process, making the audio CD compatible with all players.
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