File extension MP3 is used for audio/music files encoded in MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) format. A MP3 sample file is provided. Free MP3 players and editors are listed.
What is MP3? MP3 is a short name for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, which is a very popular encoding format for audio recording.
MP3 was invented by a team of European engineers at Philips, CCETT, IRT and Fraunhofer Society in 1991.
MP3 is the file extension for files storing audio recordings encoded in MP3 format.
MP3 format supports several bit rates: 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256 and 320 kbit/s.
But 128 kbit/s is most commonly used since it typically offers very good audio quality
in a relatively small space. By contrast, uncompressed audio as stored on an audio CD
(Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) has a bit rate of 1,411.2 kbit/s
(16 bits/sample * 44100 samples/second * 2 channels / 1000 bits/kilobit).
Here are the first 64 bytes of a sample MP3 file dumped in HEX values:
