MP3 compression exploits psychoacoustic limits to shrink files tenfold with little audible loss

Evidence

Most formats that we listen to, such as MP3, are not lossless. Compromises have been made, again based on psychoacoustics, to make the files much smaller without much audible reduction in fidelity. Here, of course, the aficionados get into the act, quite rightly claiming that they do not get the full experience from these more radically compressed files. An MP3 file that is created by writing down 128,000 bits every second gives a file roughly 10 times smaller than the digital file on the CD original audio source. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 486

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains lossy vs lossless compression and grounds the MP3 bit-rate figure concretely.
• XREF: Quantitative compression figure pairs well with the reader’s soundscape and silence library work.