If you are amongst those who are inspired by good music and for whom music is an intrinsic part of life, you would definitely want to know if music sounds better on CDs or through internet downloads. Though it is up to the individual's personal liking, listening experiences does vary from medium to medium.



If you are to understand the concept of downloading music from websites through the internet, then it is important to understand “compression”. Compression is basically making a thing smaller than its original size and this is particularly useful while downloading music as the original file would be in large sizes which would make it difficult for people to download. Internet connectivity speed also plays a vital part in the ease of download. Files can be compressed in two forms, one loses no quality, while the other suffers some quality loss.

In the compressed mode, you get the same contents as you put in during the compression. This is similar to using zip files on your computer. The compressed files are compact and do not lose much information. Whereas in the other mode of compression also known as “lossy” compression, the decompressed mode is not same as the original in quality as well as file size. The quality is not up to the mark. The compression is measured in what is called as “bit-rate” and a higher bit rate number better will be the quality.

The best example for lossy compression formats are the MP3 and MP4 / AAC formats where you have considerable loss in the quality compared to the original CDs. However, it does not mean that the quality of lossy compression are undesirable or not worth listening to. During the process of compression, certain parts of the recording are removed which are generally not audible in actual CDs. In other terms you will be missing only the finer aspects, which generally goes undetected.

In the music industry, MP3 recording is encoded at 320 kbps bit rate. This is believed to be quite sufficient as the difference in the MP3 music while compared to the original is negligible and goes unnoticed by most people. Generally MP3s are downloaded at 192 kbps as keen music lovers believe that this is minimum acceptable standard. Though, other services like iTunes have most of their content at 256 k AAC MP4.

Another way of listening to good music is to buy an original CD and convert it into a format of your choice, 320 kbps is most suitable. Sometimes, iTunes and other music software do have superior quality while compared to a CD as the audio are re-mastered. With the CD, you do have an option of listening on either your computer or a home CD player or even on the move in the car.

Like personal choices in music, your preference of listening too depends on your own likings. But to decide which would suit your taste better, listening to music through all types of media is a good idea.