MP3’s are evil !
A standard CD is recorded with an audio stream of 1411 kbits/sec, while most mp3’s found and purchased on the wed have the stream of 128-320 kbits/sec. It is regardless of what compression methods, optimization techniques, or filtering that were used to create the MP3, MP4, or WMA, the result will always contain only a fraction of the original information. It then comes as not surprise that many claim that they cannot hear the difference between a 128 kbits/sec and 320 kbits/sec MP3. It is simply because we are progressively loosing our ability to hear such subtleties the more we listen to lossy content.
We are becoming a culture that in not only incapable to appreciate a good pair of headphones but one that looses it’s ability to process natural sounds, as the listenership rates rise.
In a brief essay Pantelis Vassilakis describes in simple terms the consequences of listening to lossy music(mp3) and makes suggestions to avoid the degeneration of hearing:
