Monkey’s Audio is a lossless audio compressor which aims to reduce the size of audio files as much as possible without losing any sound quality. The program uses its own file format, .ape, which is known to have a better compression rate than the lossless FLAC format, but files tend to be larger than lossy compression formats like MP3 or AAC.

We recommend using Monkey’s Audio to compress audio CDs to your PC. Your songs will not lose their quality but will take up less space than if they were uncompressed. What’s more, Monkey’s Audio handles tag support, keeping all your file information, like artist name, track numbers and playing time.

Monkey’s Audio can decompress files back to their original type without losing any quality and the program features an option to verify the MD5 checksum of compressed files. Compressed .ape files can play in any of the major media players and the program can also install a plug-in to compress audio files directly from Winamp.

Monkey’s Audio is a great solution if you’re worried about losing any quality when compressing audio files. However, because it only compresses to .ape, you’re pretty much stuck with playing your converted files on your PC. To enjoy them on your mobile music player you’ll have to use another program, like dbpowerAMP Music Converter or Switch Free, to convert your audio files to MP3 or AAC, which remain the most widely supported audio formats.