Hi, I'm an MP3. I destroy sound quality.

Today the most common format used to enjoy music is the MP3, short for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. Designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group, MP3 is a form of lossy compression used in digital audio encoding. The Group's intent when designing the format was to faithfully reproduce an uncompressed recording using as little storage space as possible.

MP3s are most commonly created by 'ripping' music from a CD. The most common bit rate for an MP3 file is 128kbits/second and to put the difference in perspective, the bit rate for uncompressed music on CD is 1,411.2kb/s. This means that the MP3 file will take up about 1/10 the space as the uncompressed file from the CD, so in a sense it is a compromise of storage space and sound quality. MP3s can be created at several different bit rates ranging from 32kb/s up to 320kb/s. Higher the bit rate, better the sound quality. So next time you're listening to your MP3 player and happen to notice that some songs just 'sound better' than others, remember that what you're hearing is the difference in sound quality between variable bit rates.

It was also the development of MP3s that led to peer-to-peer file sharing and widespread copyright infringement, but that is a can of worms I'll wait to open at a later time.

To recap, the quality of digital music is first degraded by the processes of sampling and anti-aliasing then it is further reduced by the process of compression. The degradation of the sound doesn't have to continue, there are other options available today. There are lossless compression options available as well. FLAC, or Free Lossless Audio Codec, is the most common. FLAC will reduce the storage space needed, but will not sacrifice the integrity of the audio source. Compared to MP3s averaging approximately 10% of the original file size, FLAC results are around 46% of the original file size.