Lossless music compression

wv files are created by wavpack. Wavpack is a set of tools that enable conversion of wav to compressed-wav's, called wv. These files are compressed, but unlike mp3's, their compression is lossless.
You might think: why isn't simpler to zip the wav's?
In fact it's simpler, but typical wav files conversion via zip (or other usual compression tools) just provides around 30 to 35% of compression, whilst wavpack allows around 70% of compression.

For people not interested in music quality, mp3 is definitly a good choice; but conserving music quality with a short storage makes wavpack an interesting application.

There are not so many applications capable of reading wv files directly.
One of my favorites is VUPlayer, by James Chapman.

It allows to play a large set of formats, and has a simple but extremely functional interface.






Let's consider one example:

unzip -Z fart.zip
Archive: fart.zip 146056 bytes 3 files
-rw-r--r-- 2.3 unx 12576 bx defN 8-Dec-07 19:19 fart.mp3
-rw-r--r-- 2.3 unx 44520 bx defN 8-Dec-07 19:23 fart.wv
-rw-r--r-- 2.3 unx 89544 bx stor 8-Dec-07 19:23 fart.zip
3 files, 146640 bytes uncompressed, 145658 bytes compressed: 0.7%

Here you can see an extremely small sound file:

wavinfo fart.wav
WAV header info:
File length: 138380.
Format: PCM Type 1.
2 channels.
44100 samples per second.
16 bits per sample.
4 byte block alignment.
WAV has 4 chunks:
Chunk 0: "fmt " at 12. 16 bytes of data beginning at 20.
Chunk 1: "data" at 36. 138240 bytes of data beginning at 44.
Chunk 2: "LIST" at 138284. 70 bytes of data beginning at 138292.
Chunk 3: "DISP" at 138362. 10 bytes of data beginning at 138370.
Length: 34560 samples.
Time: 0.784 seconds. (0 min 0.784 sec).

dd if=fart.wav bs=1 skip=138292 count=76 | yshowtext -f
76+0 records in
76+0 records out
INFOIART[0C][00][00][00]Fart artist[00]ICRD[05][00][00][00]2007[00][00]IGNR[06][00][00][00]Vocal[00]INAM[09][00][00][00]no album[00][00]DISP
[00]

It has less than a second of duration, but since it has the regular format, it occupies 144 Kb.
Interestingly it has 4 chunks, instead of the usual 2. Typically wav's have just 2 chunks: the first is the format (fmt), the second the data, i.e. the sound. This wav was edited by VUPlayer: it allowed to add some extra information, "INFOIART"; in this example, just for fun, the artist name is Fart artist, from 2007, "IGNR" is Vocal, and "INAM" is No album: this is the third chunk, the "LIST" chunk. Finally a short "DISP", with just 10 bytes. "DISP" goes immediately after the "LIST" chunk, consisting of the fourth and final chunk.
This illustrates the intrinsic capability of

wavinfo /net/luisa/huge/music_copy/wav/New\ Order\ -\ Best\ of/New\ Order\ -\ The\ best\ of\ -\ \[02-16]\ Bizarre\ Love\ Triangle\ \'94.wav
WAV header info:
File length: 41341212.
Format: PCM Type 1.
2 channels.
44100 samples per second.
16 bits per sample.
4 byte block alignment.
WAV has 3 chunks:
Chunk 0: "fmt " at 12. 16 bytes of data beginning at 20.
Chunk 1: "data" at 36. 41341104 bytes of data beginning at 44.
Chunk 2: "LIST" at 41341148. 56 bytes of data beginning at 41341156.
Length: 10335276 samples.
Time: 234.360 seconds. (3 min 54.360 sec).

dd if=/net/luisa/huge/music_copy/wav/New\ Order\ -\ Best\ of/New\ Order\ -\ The\ best\ of\ -\ \[02-16]\ Bizarre\ Love\ Triangle\ \'94.wav bs=1 skip=41341156 | yshowtext -f
56+0 records in
56+0 records out
INFOIART
[00][00][00]New Order[00]INAM[1A][00][00][00]Bizarre Love Triangle '94[00]


wavinfo /net/luisa/huge/music_copy/wav/Suzanne\ Vega\ -\ Suzanne\ Vega/\(Suzanne\ Vega\)\ Suzanne\ Vega\ \[03]\ Marlene\ On\ The\ Wall.wav
WAV header info:
File length: 38859788.
Format: PCM Type 1.
2 channels.
44100 samples per second.
16 bits per sample.
4 byte block alignment.
WAV has 2 chunks:
Chunk 0: "fmt " at 12. 16 bytes of data beginning at 20.
Chunk 1: "data" at 36. 38859744 bytes of data beginning at 44.
Length: 9714936 samples.
Time: 220.293 seconds. (3 min 40.293 sec).

Enjoy wav's... ;)