What is a AIFC file?
Compressed variant of AIF with smaller file sizes
Similar to the .AIF file format, the .AIFC file format was developed by Apple in 1988 and is based on the IFF (Interchange file format). However, the .AIFC is the compressed variant of the .AIF file format for users who are a bit more sensitive about file size. The AIFC format is used by media players and gaming consoles.
AIFC files contains CD-quality audio; similar to a .WAV file, but uses audio compression to reduce file size. So they are more similar to MP3 files and may use ULAW, ALAW, or G722 compression. You can also see AIFC files also referred to as AIFF-C files.