lossyWAV is a bit reduction processor which carefully removes some lower significant bits from digital audio signal by setting them to zero. Resulting audio file is compressed more efficiently with any lossless encoder, FLAC for example. The algorithm was designed to be audibly transparent with high degree of confidence.

More about this bit reduction scheme is on lossyWAV – Hydrogenaudio Wiki page.

As the process is not mathematically transparent (lossy), some small degradation of signal is introduced inevitably. How small is it? In order to answer the question lossyWAV was added to SE. New DSP section was created for the purpose as lossyWAV is not encoder.

Also it is a good contender to test (and tune if necessary) SE ability to rate devices/technologies with extremely small degradation of signal, inaudible in most cases.

The testing is open now – lossyWAV test files have been added to rotation. Volunteers are welcome!