Quite surprised to have just discovered that Wavelab does not support CAF files - hmm. CAF files are used by a lot of apps, including apps for iPad etc, such as Presonus Capture, which can automatically send the session to a Studio One session, which of course reads CAFs fine. Logic can read CAF - and if Logic can, I’d expect Wavelab to. For a "Swiss Army knife " audio app that’s a missing feature I’d say. I only bought it to do file conversions, noise removals, pre-production editing etc from various source files, and to export to other formats. So there’s a gap in its repertoire. here’s the Wiki entry for it in case anyone’s interested.
The Core Audio Format is a container for storing audio, developed by Apple Inc. It is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and higher; Mac OS X 10.3 needs QuickTime 7 to be installed.[1]
Core Audio Format is designed to overcome limitations of older digital audio formats, including AIFF and WAV. Just like the QuickTime .mov container, a .caf container can contain many different audio formats, metadata tracks, and much more data. Like the RF64, it is not limited to a 4 GB file size and a single .caf file can theoretically save hundreds of years of recorded audio due to its use of 64-bit file offsets.[2]
GarageBand, Soundtrack Pro, and Logic Studio use the .caf format for their loop and sound effects library, particularly for surround-sound audio compressed with the Apple Lossless (ALAC) codec.