Almost everybody listens to music these days on sound devices like iPods or other MP3 players. iPods are also beginning to replace Hi-fi’s in most people’s houses, but in some ways they should not – the sound quality, while perfect for jogging or listening while exercising, is nowhere near that of a CD.

A CD’s sound is typically recorded at 1411 kbps and an MP3 is typically at 128 kbps. That figure alone shows you that the sound quality in your typical MP3 is of a dramatically worse quality. Record producers still make high quality sound, but it is typically substantially downgraded to listen to on an iPod, or other MP3 player, leaving out much of the finer detail. One can only hope with the increased bandwidth and faster download speeds, that there will no longer be a need to compress the sound so much, and we can start seeing a movement towards better quality sound, just as we have with television quality improving with HD TV. Most people who watch TV on HD actually struggle to watch any other format of TV once they got used to HD and so hopefully it will be with sound.