À propos des fichiers APE

APE (Monkey's Audio · Format audio)

Lancement 2000 Par Matthew T. Ashland

Monkey's Audio (.ape) est un format de fichier pris en charge par KaijuConverter pour l’archivage, l’échange professionnel et la conversion multiplateforme.

Famille

Audio Files

Extension

.ape

Type MIME

audio/ape, audio/x-ape

Utilisable comme

Entrée

L'histoire

COMMENT APE
A VU LE JOUR.

Monkey’s Audio — .ape — was released in 2000 by Matthew Ashland as a Windows-native lossless audio codec. Its claim to fame was compression efficiency: at its highest setting ("Insane") it squeezed CD audio into roughly 40-50% of the original WAV size, beating FLAC by 3-5% consistently. The trade-off was speed — APE was slower to encode and decode than FLAC, and the reference implementation was Windows-only.

For a few years in the early 2000s, audiophile music collectors swore by APE. The FLAC vs APE debate was contested: better compression versus faster speed and broader platform support. FLAC eventually won on ecosystem breadth (native Linux and macOS tooling, hardware decoder support) and licensing (APE’s license was more restrictive). APE remains a niche pick for audiophiles who prize every byte and don’t mind Windows-centric tooling.

CURIOSITÉS ET
ANECDOTES.

APE typically compresses 3-5% better than FLAC — a margin audiophiles fought wars over in the early 2000s.

The reference codec is Windows-only; cross-platform playback relies on the open-source libmac.

APE files embed APEv2 tags — a metadata scheme also used by Musepack and WavPack but incompatible with ID3.

At the "Insane" compression level, encoding CD audio takes 30-60× longer than at "Normal" — a genuine quality vs time dial.

Bandcamp, HDTracks, and most Hi-Res streaming services declined APE support in favor of FLAC — sealing the platform war.

POINTS FORTS ET
LIMITES.

Points forts

Highest lossless compression ratio among mainstream codecs.
Lossless — bit-exact with the source.
Active development since 2000.
APEv2 metadata tags support rich cataloging.

Limites

Windows-centric tooling; macOS/Linux support via libmac is second-class.
Slow encoding at high levels (30-60× realtime).
Restrictive license blocked adoption by streaming services.
Limited hardware decoder support vs FLAC.
Niche — mostly used by long-time audiophiles.

Tailles et poids typiques

3-min song (Normal)

18-25 MB

3-min song (Insane)

16-22 MB

Full CD album

220-350 MB

Spécifications techniques

MIME type: audio/x-ape
Extension: .ape
Compression levels: Fast, Normal, High, Extra High, Insane
Metadata: APEv2 tags
Max sample rate: 192 kHz

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CONVERTIR DEPUIS
APE

ape mp3 ape wav ape flac ape aac ape m4a ape ogg ape opus ape wma ape aiff

Cas d'usage courants

Lossless music archiving