How good is MPEG-1 AUDIO compression?
MPEG can compress to a bitstream of 32 kbit/s to 384 kbit/s (Layer II). A raw PCM audio bitstream is about 705kbit/s so this gives a max compression ratio of about 22. Normal compression ratio is morelike 1:6 or 1:7. If you think that this is not much please remember that unlike video we are talking about no perceivable quality loss here. 96kbit/s is considered transparent for most practical purposes. This means that you will not notice any difference between the original and the compressed signal for rock’n roll or popular music. For more demanding stuff like piano concerts and such you will need to go up to 128kbit/s.
