I've got some .wv files. Are these lossless?

[kurtphyre]

I found this information on the internet: WavPack is unique offering a Lossless, Lossy and both Lossless & Lossy. How can a file be both Lossless & Lossy? two files are written a .wv and .wvc, when kept together the resulting audio is decoded as Lossless, when the .wvc is taken away then decoding is Lossy.

WavPack's Lossy compressor works best at high bitrates (higher than 320kbps), top of its class when compared to Ogg Vorbis, mp3, WMA and AAC/ m4a.

In the folder with the .wv files their isn't a seperate .wvc file. Does this mean these aren't lossless? They are big though...about 20-30 megs per song.

[BooYaa!]

I've never used the .wvc files, only straight lossless WavPack (.wv) files. I losslessly compressed a 24-bit/96kHz recording this way. I think what you have is lossless. However, I don't know enough about WavPack to tell you how to confirm this.

[musicality]

I've never actually seen anyone use Wavepack's hybrid mode and the default is lossless. Either way, .wvc files are correction files for the hybrid mode, meaning that you can create a lossy wavepack file and also a correction .wvc file that will contain all of the information discarded to make the first file lossy. You then have the option of doing whatever you want with the hybrid .wv file but you can still combine it with the .wvc for lossless decompression to .wav later.

The absence of .wvc files would tend to support the belief that the .wv files are lossless (there can't be a .wvc file for a lossless .wv as nothing is discarded to create it with).

Your software's file info box should show you the compression mode.