History
David Bryant started development on WavPack in mid-1998 with the release of version 1.0 (1998-08-15). This first version compressed and decompressed audio losslessly, but by then it already featured one of the best efficiency vs. speed ratios among lossless encoders.
Very soon after the release of version 1.0, v. 2.0 (2 September 1998) was released, featuring lossy encoding (using only quantization of prediction residue for data reduction - no psychoacoustic masking model was applied to the stream).
In 1999, version 3.0 (12 September 1999) was released, with a new "fast mode" (albeit with reduced compression ratio), compression of raw (headerless) PCM audio files, and error detection using a 32-bit cyclic redundancy check.
WavPack development is ongoing. A feature added in late 3.x versions is the "hybrid" mode where the encoder generates a lossy file and a correction file such that both can be decompressed back to a PCM stream that is same quality as the original. A “roadmap” is also published by the author, containing possible hints on future development.
Read more about this topic: WavPack
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