mp3s

MP3, short for MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, is a digital audio coding format and a method of lossy compression for sound data. It is part of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 audio standards and was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by the Fraunhofer Society and other researchers. MP3 compresses audio by perceptual coding: it analyzes the audio signal with a psychoacoustic model and discards information considered perceptually redundant, achieving substantial reductions in file size with only modest perceived loss of quality.

MP3 files typically have the extension .mp3 and can contain mono or stereo audio with sampling rates up to 48 kHz. Compression is available in configurable bitrates, commonly 128, 192, or 320 kbps, or in variable bitrate (VBR) or average bitrate (ABR) modes. The format supports metadata via ID3 tags, which store information such as title, artist, album, and artwork.

Because of broad patent licensing arrangements and widespread software and hardware support, MP3 became the de facto standard for digital music distribution in the 1990s. It remains widely playable in media players and devices, although newer codecs such as AAC and Ogg Vorbis offer improved efficiency at similar or lower bitrates.

Ripping music from physical media or creating digital copies typically results in MP3 files, and they have been used for streaming, personal collections, and portable players. Limitations include perceptible artifacts at low bitrates and the loss of original audio data, making MP3 less suitable for archival purposes compared with lossless formats.