http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/08/DDEJR7KN11.DTL

   MP3 music - it's better than it sounds
   Joel Selvin, SF Chronicle

   Whether you know it or not, that compact disc you just copied
   to your MP3 player is only partially there.

   With the CD on its way out and computer files taking over as the
   primary means of hearing recorded music, the artificial audio
   of MP3s is quickly becoming the primary way people listen to
   music. Apple already has sold 100 million iPods, and more than
   a billion MP3 files are traded every month through the Internet.

   But the music contained in these computer files represents less
   than 10 percent of the original music on the CDs. In its journey
   from CD to MP3 player, the music has been compressed by eliminating
   data that computer analysis deems redundant, squeezed down until
   it fits through the Internet pipeline.

   When even the full files on the CDs contain less than half the
   information stored to studio hard drives during recording, these
   compressed MP3s represent a minuscule fraction of the actual
   recording.  For purists, it's the dark ages of recorded sound.
   ...

<But keep reading on the Web, it's an excellent article>

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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