The Music Web FAQ

Why do some songs sound better than others?

There are two main factors that affect sound quality with internet music. The first is the quality level at which the track was recorded into electronic form. The second is the quality of your internet connection, if you are streaming music directly off the internet. With downloaded music, the first issue is the big one, though downloaded music is generally of higher quality than streamed music.  

When a song is put in MP3 form, the original file (perhaps on a CD) is read and the song is compressed according to certain rules. But different programs for compressing songs work in different ways. Because MP3 is a standard file format, the result is always an output that can be read by all MP3 players, but how well they sound might be different. For example, some programs might create the file faster at the cost of lower sound quality. According to Will Ryu at arstechnica.com, the MP3 compression standard does not specify the encoding process, and this “allows improvements to be added to the encoder without needing to change the MP3 standard, per se. It is this flexibility which has led to the variety of encoders with different encoding speeds and sonic qualities that we have today.” [http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/mp3/mp3-1.html]

For streamed music, your connection speed have the biggest impact. If your internet connection is too low, one of two things will happen. Often, your computer will not be able to receive packets of audio information as fast as it can play them, and every little while it will have to stop – this is what causes gaps in the sound. Some sites provide different streams for different connection speeds, so that if you have a slower connection, you can select the appropriate version to stream, which should skip less, but will either require more buffering time or be of generally lower quality. 

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