subject: How MP3's affects your health [print this page] Original music files are HUGEOriginal music files are HUGE. So wecompress them. After more than a decade, MPEG3format or "MP3" has been the alpha dog of thepack of other compression formats. Uunfortunately "compression" means that a lot of theoriginal music datais lost. The moreyou compress, the moredata are lost in exchange for smallfile size. If your music consists of MP3's withbit rates less than 192kbps or equivalentquality in other formats, the musicyou listen to may be affecting you more than you realize.
How? Well, yourhearing works a lot like your eyes. It has a foreground, background, and afocus point. Usually wetrain ourselves to ignore the background noise but here's the problem,you still hear them atfull capacity.Ears have no lids like theeye nor can it squint when needed. Hearing is on 24/7 even in your sleep. Yourbody is also affected by sounds thatthe human ear cannothear.Vibrations areeverywhere. So it has aneffect onour health in general.
Now, let's talk about MP3 compression. When arecognizable quality of aninstrument hasloss in data, your brain tries to make up for it unconsciously. So the loss of music quality, your brain tries to make up for that.This hasa subconscious distress on yourbrain which adds unnecessary stress. Sometimes, this can even contribute to loss of sleep. If this was too complicated foryou tounderstand, think of it this way... Let's sayyou are writing a letter.But you have tofit thisletter in atiny hole so youcut it into several pieces andcrumples it so it would fit. On the other side,you have to take the time toundo the crumple and put the puzzle-like pieces back together.The writings are barely legible butyou squint your eyes and thinkto thebest of your abilities to try and make out theletter. This is what an MP3 does at an unconscious level.An artist writes a song and "crumples" or "compresses" thesong. Bby the time it reaches us, it is far from the original. This causes our brain to compensate. Think of it like a blurry photoyou constantly squint and stare at, trying tomake out what it is - you know what it is but yourimagination andrecognition is on at alltimes.
Ifyou purchase your music online throughiTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon or others, you should befine.Their compressionsgo up to 320 kbps which isfairly close to the original. Y so your braindoes not need tocompensate. On the other hand, the most popular compression for MP3 Files are 128kbps. Your body may be addingexcess stress it does not need. See ifyou can re-rip or re-download into a higher standard.iTunes Plus allows 30 cent upgrades for older files.
