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OPUS

WAV to Opus Converter — Free, Online, No Upload

Opus at 96 kbps sounds as good as WAV at 1400 kbps — perfect for any streaming or voice-over-IP use case.

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Need the reverse?OPUS → WAV

How to convert WAV to OPUS online

  1. 1

    Drop your WAV file

    Drag your Waveform Audio File Format file onto the box above, or click it to pick a file.

  2. 2

    Wait a few seconds

    Conversion starts on its own and runs on your device, not on a server.

  3. 3

    Download your OPUS

    Click Download to save the Opus Interactive Audio Codec file.

WAV vs OPUS: format overview

WAV

Waveform Audio File Format

Microsoft and IBM · 1991

Compression
none
Transparency
No
  • ✓ Lossless — no quality degradation
  • ✓ Universal DAW compatibility for production
  • ✗ Extremely large file sizes
OPUS

Opus Interactive Audio Codec

IETF / Xiph.Org · 2012

Compression
lossy
Transparency
No
  • ✓ Best low-bitrate quality of any audio codec
  • ✓ Royalty-free and open standard (RFC 6716)

WAV magic bytes: 52 49 46 46 xx xx xx xx 57 41 56 45

OPUS magic bytes: 4F 67 67 53 (Ogg container)

Why convert WAV to OPUS?

WAV at CD quality uses about 1,400 kbps of bandwidth — which is fine for a local hard drive but completely impractical for streaming, WebRTC, or anything delivered over a network. When the audio needs to travel in real time — voice calls, live streaming, browser-based audio playback — the source format needs to change.

Opus was specifically engineered for this problem. At 64 kbps, Opus sounds as good as a 128 kbps MP3. At 96 kbps, it's perceptually transparent for music in most listening conditions. For voice-only content — podcasts, voice memos, narration — 32 kbps Opus sounds excellent. This makes WAV-to-Opus the right conversion for web audio delivery, embedding audio in PWAs, WebRTC applications, and anywhere bandwidth efficiency matters. Discord, WhatsApp, and Zoom all use Opus internally for exactly this reason. All major browsers support Opus playback via the Web Audio API and HTML5 audio element natively.

Because WAV is lossless, the Opus encoder gets clean source audio — this is the best possible starting point for an Opus encode. The resulting file will be 95% or more smaller than the WAV source. The only limitation is platform support: iTunes and Apple Music don't handle Opus natively, so M4A or MP3 remains the better choice for Apple-centric workflows. For everything web-facing, Opus is the right call.

Quality & file size: WAV to OPUS

Typical sizes (3-minute song): WAV 30–50 MB → OPUS 1–3 MB.

OPUS output is encoded at 192 kbps.

Going from lossless WAV to lossy OPUS removes detail you cannot get back — keep the original if you may need it.

Frequently asked questions

At what bitrate should I encode WAV to Opus?
For music, 96–128 kbps Opus is perceptually transparent. For voice-only content (podcasts, voice memos), 32–48 kbps is sufficient and sounds excellent.
Is Opus supported in browsers for web audio?
Yes — all major browsers support Opus playback via the Web Audio API and HTML5 <audio> element. It's the recommended format for WebRTC voice and audio streaming.

Your WAV file never leaves this tab — FormatDrop has no endpoint that receives file data. How it works