Convert to WAV
Straight to uncompressed WAV. Nothing to download first.
or paste one from your clipboard
16-bit integer. About 96 dB of range, and what CD audio uses. The safe default for anything you are handing to other software.
How to use it
- Drop an MP3, M4A, OGG, FLAC or Opus file onto the page. It is decoded in the tab; nothing is uploaded.
- Pick a bit depth. 16-bit matches CD and is what most software expects; 24-bit matches studio practice; 32-bit writes IEEE floating point.
- Watch the projected size. WAV is uncompressed, so it grows quickly and the number below tells you exactly how quickly.
- Click Download. WAV needs no encoder, so the file is written the moment you click and there is nothing to wait for.
WAV is a wrapper, not a codec
A WAV file is a 44-byte header followed by the raw samples, in order, untouched. Microsoft and IBM defined it in 1991 as part of the Multimedia PC specification, building on RIFF. Microsoft's little-endian rework of Electronic Arts' Interchange File Format. The header states how many channels there are, how many samples per second, and how many bits each sample uses. After that it is just numbers.
This is why WAV opens in everything and why writing one takes no time at all: there is no compression to undo and no codec to negotiate. It is also why the format is a poor citizen in every other respect. There is no agreed-upon place for a title or an artist, no cover art, no gapless hints, and a hard ceiling near 4 GB because RIFF chunk lengths are unsigned 32-bit integers.
What bit depth actually controls
Bit depth is the resolution of each amplitude measurement, and it maps almost exactly to dynamic range: about 6.02 dB per bit. Sixteen bits gives roughly 96 dB between the loudest representable signal and the noise floor, which comfortably exceeds what any listening environment outside an anechoic chamber can resolve. Twenty-four bits gives about 144 dB, which no microphone or converter can deliver either, its value is headroom during production, not fidelity at playback.
Thirty-two-bit float is a different animal. Instead of integers it stores IEEE floating-point values, which means a sample can exceed the nominal full-scale limit and come back down without being clipped. That is exactly how digital audio engines work internally, including the one in your browser, so a 32-bit float WAV is a bit-exact snapshot of what the engine was holding. It is the right choice for handing audio to a DAW and the wrong choice for handing it to a hardware sampler, half of which will simply refuse the file.
Where WAV earns its size, and where it does not
Use WAV when a piece of software or hardware insists on uncompressed PCM: most hardware samplers and drum machines, older IVR and phone systems, CD authoring, game engines loading short sound effects that must not cost CPU to decode, and broadcast workflows built on BWF, which is a WAV with an extra chunk carrying timecode and origination data. Use it as a working format between edits, where its lack of compression is a feature, nothing degrades no matter how many times you save.
Do not use it for distribution. Ten megabytes per minute is unreasonable for anything that has to travel over a network, and FLAC delivers the same samples, verifiable as bit-identical, at roughly half the size with real metadata support. The only argument for WAV over FLAC in 2020s workflows is compatibility with old or stubborn equipment, and that argument is still good often enough for the format to be everywhere.