What is APE?

Monkey's Audio Lossless Audio Compression Format. The .ape file format from Monkey's Audio is claimed to give about 50% compression without loss in audio quality.

Monkey's Audio is a fast and easy way to compress digital music. Unlike traditional methods such as mp3, ogg, or lqt that permanently discard quality to save space, Monkey's Audio only makes perfect, bit-for-bit copies of your music. That means it always sounds perfect - exactly the same as the original. Even though the sound is perfect, it still saves a lot of space. The other great thing is that you can always decompress your Monkey's Audio files back to the exact, original files. That way, you'll never have to recopy your CD collection to switch formats, and you'll always be able to recreate the original music CD if something ever happens to yours.