What is Bitrate

In short, Bitrate is the rate at which data is transferred or streamed.

Bitrate refers to how many digital bits (1's and 0's) are available per second (bit/s or bps) for encoding audio information.

As a general rule, the higher the bitrate the better the quality. Having a better quality has some draw backs such as bigger file size and slower streaming capabilities.

A standard bitrates is 128 kbps this provides a reasonable quality and file size.

Some people believe that a bitrate of 192 Kbps is equivalent to CD quality but others lean more towards 320 Kbps.

When looking to buy MP3s online look at the bitrate of the album or tracks - ideally they should be 192 kbps or more. Beware as some MP3 sites are providing MP3s at 128 Kbps which is ok but no way CD quality!