Editing WAV (section)

== Description ==
[[File:AudacityWAV.png|thumb|Icon of a WAV file associated to [[Audacity (audio editor)|Audacity]]]]
The WAV file is an instance of a [[Resource Interchange File Format]] (RIFF) defined by [[IBM]] and [[Microsoft]].<ref name="MPI1" /> The RIFF format acts as a ''wrapper'' for various [[audio coding format]]s.

Though a WAV file can contain [[audio data compression|compressed]] audio, the most common WAV audio format is uncompressed audio in the [[linear pulse-code modulation]] (LPCM) format. LPCM is also the standard audio coding format for [[audio CD]]s, which store two-channel LPCM audio [[Sampling (signal processing)|sampled]] at [[44.1&nbsp;kHz]] with 16 [[Audio bit depth|bits per sample]]. Since LPCM is uncompressed and retains all of the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format with LPCM audio for maximum audio quality.<ref name="Ryan">{{cite web|last1=Branson|first1=Ryan (21 October 2015)|title=What Makes WAV Better than MP3|url=https://videoconversiontools.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/what-makes-wav-better-than-mp3/|website=Online Video Converter|date=21 October 2015|access-date=18 June 2016}}</ref> WAV files can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software.

On Microsoft Windows, the WAV format supports compressed audio using the [[Audio Compression Manager]] (ACM). Any ACM [[codec]] can be used to compress a WAV file. The [[user interface]] (UI) for ACM may be accessed through various programs that use it, including [[Sound Recorder (Windows)|Sound Recorder]] in some versions of Windows.

Beginning with [[Windows 2000]], a <code>WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE</code> header was defined which specifies [[surround sound|multiple audio channel data]] along with speaker positions, eliminates ambiguity regarding sample types and container sizes in the standard WAV format and supports defining custom extensions to the format.<ref name="wav-specifications" /><ref name="multichaud" /><ref name="mbwf">{{citation |url=https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3306-2009.pdf |title=EBU Tech 3306 - MBWF / RF64: An Extended File Format for Audio |date=July 2009 |author=EBU |access-date=2010-01-19 |archive-date=2009-11-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091122155436/https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/tech3306-2009.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>