[cvq3842]

I like the convenience of MP3s but understand that compressing the files means some loss of sound quality, which may be only theoretical or what dogs can hear. Thanks in advance for any responses; I’m not an expert so I may just appreciate the info without replying.

PS Vinyl was great, until the first scratch on the record. I can still hear the clicks and pops in some songs in my mind . . .

[Still Thinking]

I like the convenience of MP3s but understand that compressing the files means some loss of sound quality, which may be only theoretical or what dogs can hear.

If you're ripping the songs yourself from a lossless format to MP3, the program will usually let you trade off between compression and quality. I suggest you make copies of the same song at numerous decreasing levels of quality and listen to them till you find the point at which you can just begin to hear the loss of quality, then just rip a level or two better than that. Everyone's ears are different.

[Terabitten]

I like the convenience of MP3s but understand that compressing the files means some loss of sound quality, which may be only theoretical or what dogs can hear. Thanks in advance for any responses; I’m not an expert so I may just appreciate the info without replying.

You're both right and wrong about the compression.

Think of it this way: Imagine a three minute long film clip, that's 180 seconds, right? Now imagine a "sampling rate" of 1 sample per second - one frame of video each second. It'd be unwatchable. Now imagine a sampling rate of a million frame per second - it'd look great.

MP3 works the same way. 64kbps (kilobytes per second) will make a voice-only recording that you can understand, but it won't sound great. 256kbps is, for all intents and purposes, the same as listening live.

Here's a resource: mp3 bitrates