AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is Apple's uncompressed audio container, the Mac-world counterpart to Microsoft's WAV. Both wrap linear PCM with a header, so the audio inside is identical in quality — bit-for-bit what the converter captured — and the practical differences are byte order (AIFF is big-endian, WAV little-endian) and metadata conventions. AIFF is the native interchange format across older macOS and many digital-audio workstations, common for masters, stems, and sound libraries on Apple systems. Like WAV it is lossless and large, and like WAV it is something you compress to AAC, Opus, or FLAC before delivery. Compressed Apple audio uses ALAC instead.
The book · Volume 4 of 7
Audio for Video: A Complete Guide to Sound in Video Products: From PCM and Codecs to Loudness, Accessibility, and Real-Time Voice Processing
AIFF and WAV carry the same PCM audio, so problems usually come from byte order, metadata or tools that assume one format. Volume 4 covers AIFF in detail within lossless formats: PCM, WAV, AIFF, FLAC and ALAC, sample rates and bit depth, and how these files enter a video production pipeline. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
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