WAV is a hugely popular lossless audio format. Lossless audio comes from an originating source that has a bit-by-bit file that actually maps all the points on a sound wave. The two main formats of choice for complete recording are WAV (pronounced wave) and AIFF (sometimes pronounced "Aee-ph"). Both file formats are devoid of any sort of compression, making an average pop music song three or four minutes in length a hefty 50MB. While not as large of an issue in modern computing, 50MB file sizes in the mid to late 90s made the transfer of audio files extremely difficult, which is why lossy codecs were born. WAV is typically the Windows standard for audio storage, while AIFF is the Mac standard, though in modern usage both work interchangeably on either operating system. The WAV and AIFF formats are typically seen as "master" or "archive" formats, meaning they aren't typically distributed to the public since the file sizes are large, though the audio quality is much higher than any lossy codec.

Find out more in our audio formats primer »