Sure you know what MP3s are, everyone does.  But there is more than one way to make them, and how you choose to do so can have a huge impact on the quality of the and the size as well.  Ars Technica takes you through Fast Fourier Transforms, compression algorithms as well as some of the other formats that offer you alternatives to MP3.  Your music collection may never sound the same again.

“But what is MP3? The usual explanations usually take one of two forms. The long version, available in technical papers, is written in jargon and filled with math. The short version, often used by newspapers and nontechnical periodicals, simply states that the process eliminates parts of sound not normally heard by the human ear. But this one-sentence description raises more questions than it answers for any reasonably tech-savvy reader: how does it find those unheard sounds, and how does it get rid of them? What’s the difference between the different bit rates and quality levels? If you’re anything like me, you’ve often wanted to know the mechanics of MP3, but not to the point of writing your own encoder.”

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Audio Corner