faad2 ☆

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Description:
ISO AAC audio decoder

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 2.11.2@0 | Tracked Since: Dec 17, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Multimedia

Tags: audio multimedia decoder aac cli

Install: brew install faad2

About:
faad2 is a command-line decoder for AAC audio files, supporting both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 variants. It can process raw AAC streams as well as container formats like MP4/M4A. This tool is essential for converting proprietary AAC formats to uncompressed WAV for editing or playback on legacy devices.

Key Features:

Decodes MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AAC audio formats
Supports raw AAC streams and MP4 container files
Outputs to uncompressed WAV format for maximum compatibility
Lightweight command-line interface suitable for scripting

Use Cases:

Converting purchased AAC audio files to WAV for editing in legacy audio software
Batch decoding AAC streams for server-side audio processing pipelines
Extracting audio tracks from MP4 video containers for separate processing

Alternatives:

ffmpeg – More comprehensive multimedia suite that can decode AAC and many other formats, but heavier dependency for simple decoding tasks
fdk-aac – Provides AAC encoding capabilities with higher quality but focuses on encoding rather than decoding

License: GPL-2.0-or-later

Bottles available for: arm64_tahoe, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_ventura, sonoma, ventura, arm64_linux, x86_64_linux

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 10, 2025 8:22am		0	VERSION_BUMP	f0857e90