Microsoft Wave

• Extensions: wav
• Company: Microsoft
• Specification: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat/

The Microsoft Wave format (WAV) is a very common format used for transporting audio data, based on the RIFF container format. The WAV format uses 16-bit numbers to identify different audio coding formats. The WAV format is likely the origination point for the infamous WAVEFORMAT(EX) data structures that permeate through computer multimedia technology to this day.

Structure

A basic WAV file has this RIFF structure:

RIFF "WAVE"
    DATA "fmt " (space at end), len: 16
    DATA "data"

However, some files may have additional chunks containing metadata, etc.