I have downloaded a eac-ape file and cannot play it. what do I have to do to play this format on wmp or real player?

APE files are Monkey's Audio files. "eac-ape" does not make any sense.

Do you have file extensions visible in Explorer? How large is the file (KB)? If it is only small (<5KB) try dragging it into Notepad and looking at the contents.

I suspect that you have a text/batch file with no extension showing in Explorer. Right-click on the file, choose "Properties", and see what info you get.

the only info I get is APE file and 206MB

This should be an audio file compressed with Monkey's Audio. MA is freeware; you can download and install the program, then use it to decompress the file, which should then play in many programs.

There are also plug-ins for some players that will decompress the file in real time as they play it. I haven't bothered with any of those, so you will have to search one out, or wait for someone who knows to happen along and tell you, if you want to go that route.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html

May as well go for 4.01b2.

Install it and then use the GUI to decompress to WAVE.

thank you! downloaded monkey's audio and decompressed the file. I can listen to it now.

Why not use another player that has support for APE? Like Winamp or foobar2000 (though 0.9.1's ape decoder might still be unstable). That way you don't have to decode in advance, and you save some space too.

is the foobar2000 APE component based on libmac from the mac-port project on sourceforge?