MP3 files work on most devices, and the files can be as small as one-tenth the size of lossless files. MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) is the most popular of the lossy formats. Artists and engineers who send audio files back and forth prefer not to use lossy formats, because the files degrade every time they’re exported. They don’t decompress back to their original file size, so they end up smaller, and some sound waves are lost. Lossy audio formats lose data in the transmission.
