sfArk compresses SoundFont files for the purpose of saving disk space and transmission time when sent via email or other form of file transfer such as downloading from a web site. The compression is lossless - the audio quality of the SoundFont is preserved. This is different to the compression used in formats such as MP3 or Real Audio which providemuch higher compression ratios but sound quality is lost. sfArk compressed files are generally between 45% and 80% of the original file size, depending on the nature of the SoundFont file. The compression is invariably much better than can be achieved by conventional compression tools such as WinZip and WinRAR on the same material because sfArk's compression is optimised for handling the digitalaudio data present in SoundFont files.