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An MP3 compressor reduces the size of audio files by using masking to convert high frequency sounds to lower ones. This results in a 10 times smaller file, making storage and downloading easier, but at the expense of lower quality sound. Compression algorithms can limit the drop in quality, but may result in slightly larger files.
An MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (MP3) compressor is a program that takes audio files and compresses them into MP3 files. Such a compressor normally uses masking so that softer, less memory-heavy sounds can be used instead of louder ones, allowing the audio file to shrink in size. When an uncompressed audio file is passed through an MP3 compressor, it will normally shrink by about 10 times. The benefits of using this type of program are that smaller audio files are easier to store and downloading over the Internet is faster. At the same time, this typically comes at the expense of lower quality sound which can usually be fixed, but not always.
When it comes to hearing two similar pitches or frequencies, the human ear will rarely be able to tell the difference between them. An MP3 compressor takes advantage of this and converts most high frequency sounds into slightly lower frequency sounds. Lower frequencies typically require less memory, so the compressor is able to reduce the file’s memory load by a considerable amount. This technique, known as masking, will go unnoticed by most listeners if they just listen to the MP3.
An MP3 compressor is usually used on uncompressed audio files, although other compressed formats can also be converted to MP3. On average, the compressor will reduce the uncompressed file by 10 times; this means that a 50 megabyte (MB) file will grow from approximately 4.5 MB to 5 MB after conversion. The sound is generally smooth and artifacts, or anomalies in the sound, will rarely appear from the compression.
The main advantage of using an MP3 compressor is that the audio files are much smaller than before. The file is usually 10 times smaller, so about 10 times as many songs can be saved to a computer or audio device. Downloading is also easier, because it will take much less time to download a 5MB file than a 50MB uncompressed file.
Although they are smaller, there is usually a problem with using an MP3 compressor, and this one is of lower quality. Masking is able to keep this to a minimum but, if people listen to compressed and uncompressed files side by side, they will usually notice a slight difference. There are compression algorithms that limit the drop in quality with advanced masking; these files are typically a bit larger in memory, but the algorithms also recognize and discard silent parts of the audio, so the weight of the file generally balances out.
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