How does lossy compression affect the quality of music?
Lossy compression reduces the file size with some loss of sound quality compared with the original. Lossy compression schemes reduce file size more drastically than lossless compression, but you might pay a price in sound quality depending on how much compression you use as well as the encoding (compression) scheme.
How does mp3 use lossy compression?
The lossy compression allows great savings in file size, with the average MP3 file being 90% smaller than an equivalent uncompressed audio file. Like all lossy compressed files, savings in size are made by deleting data that the computer believes is redundant and will not be missed by the user.