It's not mentioned in either of those links! I stand to be corrected but if you're suggesting an mp3 is equivalent to cd quality, then I think you should go to university & study audio. I have studied graphics & multimedia. Video, audio & image formats; there's lossy & lossless formats. mp3 is a "Lossy" format in that it throws away information to help reduce in size. It throws away frequencies above 15 KHz, it also approximises other information such as when some data is simple, it is able to throw away some of that information. Can you explain why a CD has above 15 KHz but mp3 doesn't? Exactly! mp3 is NOT cd quality!!! Why do some 128 kbps files show distortion when played thru a hi-fi system ... particularly the very low bass lines on some songs. Why do some sounds sound "thin" compared to the original CD. You convert a cd to 128 kbps & make your own comparisons. Choose music with a broad spectrum of frequencies, particularly very high & very low frequencies.

Compare mp3 to other graphic lossy formats. If you take a hi resolution scanned photographic image saved as TIFF (Lossless format), then re-save it as a jpeg quality 1 or 0, then compare the difference. That's like comparing WAV to mp3 128 kbps. It's just that visual comparison is a lot easier than one by sound.

128 kbps was the standard for mp3 some time ago because at one time, that was the maximum mp3 could convert to. (The maximum was even as low as 64 kbps at one time!) Likewise, mp2 had a similar maximum bit rate. It was not until recent years that mp3 allowed up to 320 kbps. I've also read old articles of people claiming 128 kbps is the same quality as CD quality; Propaganda for laymen or the ignorant.

Ask any audiophile which he'd prefer to have, an mp3 at 128 kbps or a FLAC/WAV file converted directly from CD? Good day to you too.