 Screenshot of Monkey's Audio software on Windows successfully verifying .ape files | |
| Developer(s) | Matthew T. Ashland |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2000; 25 years ago (2000) |
| Stable release | 10.96[1]  / 11 February 2025 |
| Type | Audio compression |
| License | The 3-Clause BSD Licence |
| Website | www.monkeysaudio.com |
| Filename extension | .ape |
|---|---|
| Standard | www |
| Open format? | No |
Monkey's Audio is an algorithm andfile format forlosslessaudio data compression. Lossless data compression does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlikelossy compression methods such asAdvanced Audio Coding,MP3,Vorbis, andOpus. Similar to other lossless audio codecs, files encoded to Monkey's Audio are typically reduced to about half of the original size,[2] with data transfer time and storage requirements being reduced accordingly.
Like any lossless compression scheme, Monkey's Audio format takes up several times as much space as lossy compression formats - typically, about twice as much as a 320kbit/sbitrate MP3 file. The upside is that no data is lost compared to the input file, making lossless codecs suitable for transcoding, or simply taking up approximately half as much space as raw PCM data.
Relative toFLAC,Apple Lossless Audio Codec, orWavPack, Monkey's Audio is slow to encode or decode files.
While Monkey's Audio can achieve high compression ratios,[3] the cost is a dramatic increase in requirements on the decoding end. Many older portable media players, and even older smartphones, have difficulty handling this. In comparison, most lossless codecs are asymmetric, meaning that the work done to achieve higher compression ratios, if selected by the user, slows down the encoding process, but has essentially no effect on the decoding requirements.[4]
On 10 August 2023, with the release of version 10.18, Monkey's Audio switched to theOpen Source Initiative-approved3-Clause BSD Licence.[5]
Other lossless codecs such as FLAC and WavPack are also available under open source licences, and are well supported inLinux distributions and in many applications. Since all of these formats are lossless, users can transcode between formats withoutgeneration loss.
Officially, Monkey's Audio is available for theMicrosoft Windows platform. As of version 4.02 (19 January 2009) aDirectShow filter is distributed with the installer, allowing for compatibility with most media players running on the Windows operating system.[5]
Monkey's Audio is also supported on Linux and OS X usingJRiver Media Center orPlex.
A GPL-licensed version of the Monkey's Audio decoder has been independently written for Rockbox and is included inFFmpeg.[6][7] This code also provides playback support in applications that useGStreamer,[8] as well asDeaDBeeF.
A number ofMac OS X players and rippers support the format as well.[9]It is also available as a port and package onFreeBSD.[10]
Monkey's Audio files can be encoded and decoded on any platform which has aJ2SE implementation, by the means of the unofficialJMAC library, which isfree software licensed under theGNU LGPL.
Monkey's Audio is supported natively on all modernCowon multimedia media players, theFiiO X Series and someCayin digital audio players.
On other hardware platforms, the open source firmware projectRockbox supports playback of Monkey's Audio files on most of its supported targets, but many lack sufficient processing power to play them on the higher compression settings.[4]