wavpack ☆

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Description:
Hybrid lossless audio compression

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Multimedia

Tags: audio compression lossless multimedia audio-encoding

Install: brew install wavpack

About:
Wavpack is a completely open-source hybrid lossless audio compression format and toolset. It allows users to compress audio files either as 'lossless' (perfect reconstruction) or 'hybrid' mode, which creates a small, high-quality lossy file alongside a 'correction' file for full restoration. This flexibility provides an excellent balance between file size, audio quality, and compatibility.

Key Features:

Hybrid lossless mode (lossy + correction file)
Fast decoding and encoding speeds
High compression ratios comparable to other lossless formats
Support for multi-channel (surround) and high-resolution audio
Embedded tagging and error handling

Use Cases:

Archiving high-fidelity music collections without quality loss
Distributing audio where both high quality and smaller file size are desired
Professional audio production workflows requiring lossless source files

Alternatives:

FLAC – FLAC is purely lossless and more widely supported in hardware players, but lacks Wavpack's hybrid mode flexibility.
Monkey's Audio (APE) – APE offers slightly better compression on some files but is proprietary and generally slower to decode.

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 10, 2025 9:09am		0	VERSION_BUMP	4b72cde5
Sep 10, 2024 11:18am		0	VERSION_BUMP	c6f16226