.ape file format - what's the deal?

[JSngry]

Very rarely come across this format, so don't have a player for it. But...is the format itself anything "special", and if so, what's a good, simple, free player for somebody who doesn't want to have to tweak as much as an eyebrow?

From the bottom of the pond,

Jim Sangrey, finder of lost lathers

[ejp626]

Well, it is supposed to be lossless or close to it, sort of like FLAC. I do most of my listening via WinAmp, and there are fairly simple steps to get it to play Ape (and FLAC) files. I usually just search on the internet for the plug-ins.

[Indestructible!]

APE is a lossless format audio file similar to FLAC or SHN, but it is far less popular than those two formats.

You can get an APE plug-in for Winamp, but I believe Foobar plays it right out of the box. I'm not sure if the VLC player plays APE files without a plug-in... I think it does, but I don't have any APE files handy to check on that at the moment.

FLAC FTW, though... IMHO.

Cheers,

Shane

[JSngry]

Thanks all. I had to get a plug-in for Foobar, but it went in easily.

Now I just need to get an .ape file or two.

But yeah, FLAC FTW...seems inevitable at this point, eh?

[Claude]

I think the only reason why some people use Monkey Audio instead of FLAC is the higher compression rate

http://flac.sourceforge.net/comparison.html

[Shrdlu]

Jim, some downloads appear in APE. I use Switch Sound File Converter to change it to mp3.