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An outdated but still very popular lossy audio codec. Shorthand for MPEG-1 Layer 3. Notorious for its totally gross quality at low bitrates (128 and below). Usually considered good enough when created by a good modern encoder (LAME) with VBR quality 0-3, that's usually 160..320 kbps. Although people with the most sensible ears say that its model is designed in such a way that some sounds will be thrown away or distorted even at maximum bitrate. Nowadays there are lossy codecs which are more efficient and superior to MP3 in all ways: Opus, Vorbis, AAC, Musepack are the most widely known of them.
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