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MP3 Last modified: Friday, October 27, 2006
The name of the file extension and also the name of the type of file for MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes (layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3) for the compression of audio signals. Layer 3 uses perceptual audio coding and psychoacoustic compression to remove all superfluous information (more specifically, the redundant and irrelevant parts of a sound signal. The stuff the human ear doesn't hear anyway). It also adds a MDCT (Modified Discrete Cosine Transform) that implements a filter bank, increasing the frequency resolution 18 times higher than that of layer 2. The result in real terms is layer 3 shrinks the original sound data from a CD (with a bit rate of 1411.2 kilobits per one second of stereo music) by a factor of 12 (down to 112-128kbps) without sacrificing sound quality. Because MP3 files are small, they can easily be transferred across the Internet.
MP3 Resources  Provides numerous resources related to MPEG Audio Layer 3. MP3.com  Resource site for news and information about MP3. Includes a question and answer section, information about hardware and software, and links to related sites. 32-bit MP3 Players Collection of reviewed, rated and downloadable MP3 players from Stroud's CWSApps. MP3 Articles Collection of ongoing articles about MP3 from Wired News. MP3now.com Contains links to the top MP3 search engines and charts, software, hardware, downloads, and overview information. The Digital Media Association The Digital Media Association includes other Web-media technology and retail companies, such as a2b music, broadcast.com, CDnow, Enso Audio Imaging, Liquid Audio, RealNetworks, and TCI Music. Yahoo!'s MP3 page Yahoo!'s directory of MP3.	Related Categories Audio Data Compression Related Terms AAC data compression digital audio MP3 player MPEG MP3 Players MP3 Products Find best prices on MP3 Accessories at DealTime and save money! Shop here to compare prices from 100s of merchants! Shop by Top Models: Apple iPod touch 2nd Generation (8 GB) MP3 Player 12 store offers from $180 - $240 Apple iPod touch 3rd Generation (64 GB) MP3 Player 14 store offers from $360 - $527 Apple iPod touch 2nd Generation (32 GB) MP3 Player 11 store offers from $249 - $399 Apple iPod classic 6th Generation Black (160 GB) MP3 Player 13 store offers from $220 - $400 SanDisk Sansa Fuze (4 GB) Digital Media Player 23 store offers from $34 - $119