dBpoweramp Music Converter { Help Index > Monkeys Audio Codec }
Monkeys Audio is a lossless codec, meaning no audio quality is lost whilst compressing (unlike lossy codecs such as mp3 which throw audio data away), audio compressed to a lossless codec will be decoded identical to the
source, think of it as zip for audio. All lossless codecs compress around 2:1 at best, a 3 minute audio track will be around 18 MB.
Supported by this Codec
Encoding: Yes [.ape]
Decoding: Yes [.ape]
ID Tag Reading: Yes [Id3v1, APETagv1, APETagv2]
ID Tag Writing: Yes [APETagv2 (default), APETagv1]
Supports Album Art: Yes
Gapless Encoding & Decoding: Yes
Compression Options
Being a lossless codec there are not many options to set when compressing to Monkeys Audio:
Compression affects how much effort goes into compressing the audio, all compression modes decode identical, the higher modes compress to smaller file sizes, but will require more CPU time to compress and decompress. Fast requires the least compression time, whilst Insane the most.
Codec Background
Invented by Matt T Ashland (J River employee), one of the more efficient lossless codecs with excellent compression rates. APETags were created especially for Monkeys Audio.
Encoding: compress and write audio track, Decoding: uncompress and read the track, ID Tags: meta data such as artist & album are embedded inside the audio file, Lossless: compression without audio quality loss, Lossy: audio quality is sacrificed (how much depends on bitrate and codec used) to achieve smaller files, Gapless: allows the decoder to decode audio stream without gaps (silence).
