I was asked recently to explain a little bit about music files, specifically MP3 files, in regards to quality.
The general idea was that the original files in the WAV format were over 100 MB in size, but after converting to MP3, the file size was reduced to only roughly 3% the original size. How can MP3 possibly be of any useful quality if it is so small?
As I know the inquisitive nature of the requester, I began by explaining some of the basics of the MP3 digital music file as we use them today: