The quality of music these days is bad.

I’m not just saying this as an old man yelling at clouds, screaming “music isn’t what it used to be,” but rather a tech enthusiast concerned that the bit depth and compression ratios used for streaming are compromising audio quality to save server space.

You don’t need to be a tech geek to understand that an audio file compressed to 22 times smaller than its original recording is missing crucial data. And you don’t need to be a history buff to realize that music is more than just sound—it’s also about feeling.

Data storage costs money, and higher quality takes up more space. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, and especially popularized in the late 1990s and mainstreamed in the early 2000s through devices like the iPod, audio was compressed by removing certain frequencies our ears supposedly couldn’t detect. This drastically reduced file sizes, sometimes by more than 20 times.

While this was suitable for lectures, audio logs, and other mundane audio experiences, the advent of the internet and Napster took the MP3 format and ran with it. It made it possible to download a $20 CD for free in mere hours on dial-up connections. After a few high-profile privacy lawsuits, Napster was shut down, but the MP3 format endured. In 2008, a Swedish startup called Spotify launched with the idea of compensating artists for MP3 content.

Despite advancements, Spotify still uses MP3 quality audio files on its servers today, albeit at 320 kbps, which is higher quality but still compressed to around five megabytes per track. In comparison, lossless FLAC compression, which retains all data, is around 50 to 75 megabytes per track.

We’ve become so accustomed to this compressed audio, initially developed for university lectures, that the essence of high-quality music is now a rarity, using outdated methods designed to conserve server space in the dial-up era. Music, in my opinion, is more than just sound; it’s an experience that evokes emotions in ways that can’t always be explained.

If you remove data from a file, most people won’t notice, but different sound frequencies have been shown to positively affect health—such as reducing stress and anxiety. With MP3 and streaming, much of this data is lost, leaving behind a shell of music that we can hear but not fully experience.

So, next time you’re driving past an op-shop or CD store—if they still exist—stop and pick up a CD. You might be surprised at what you’ve been missing.