Sample WAV File Download

WAV stores audio uncompressed, as a near-direct digital representation of the recorded waveform. Nothing gets discarded the way it does with MP3 — which is exactly why WAV files run five to ten times larger than a compressed equivalent at the same length.

That size cost buys zero generational loss: editing and re-saving a WAV file repeatedly doesn't degrade it, which is why it remains the standard working format in music production and audio engineering, even though the final distributed file usually gets compressed to MP3 or AAC afterward.

The sample below is a real uncompressed WAV file, useful for testing audio processing code against raw waveform data before it has to deal with any compression artifacts.