.ape File — Monkey's Audio

APE is the file format for Monkey's Audio, a lossless audio compressor created by Matthew Ashland. Monkey's Audio achieves some of the highest compression ratios among lossless audio codecs — typically 35-55% reduction from original PCM audio — but at the cost of higher CPU usage during encoding and decoding compared to FLAC or ALAC. The format supports up to 24-bit, 192 kHz audio and includes error detection. APE files are accompanied by APE tag metadata containing title, artist, album, and other information. While Monkey's Audio produces smaller files than FLAC for equivalent audio, it has several disadvantages: the software is Windows-only, the format lacks streaming support, seeking within files is slow because random access requires decoding from the beginning, and the license is restrictive (not truly open source). APE saw significant adoption in Asian music communities, particularly for sharing lossless CD rips, and remains common in Chinese music distribution. Most audiophile players and music management software support APE playback, and tools exist to convert APE to the more universally supported FLAC format.