MP3 is the most popular compression format for audio files. In this article, we will take a look at how MP3 works and how you can make your own MP3 files.
Uncompressed audio files are very large. A 1-minute CD quality stereo song requires approximately 10 MB of hard disk space. Without compression to reduce this size, relatively few songs would be able to be stored on a computer hard drive, and compact devices like portable MP3 players would not exist, or would cost thousands of dollars.
The same one-minute audio file can be encoded in MP3 format and only require about 1 MB of disk space. This amazing reduction in file size is accomplished by discarding some of the audio data that is outside the hearing range of the typical listener. An MP3 file will sound almost as good as the original CD but the file size will be about one-tenth.
There is a balance between how much audio data can be removed and the quality of the sound. The most common MP3 compression uses 128 kilobits per second (kbps), but many people claim there is a noticeable amount of distortion at this setting. For people with critical listening requirements, 160 kbps is the minimum setting