How big is a CD-quality sound file?

A CD stores music using 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample and two channels (for stereo sound). This means that a CD stores about 10 million bytes of data per minute of music on the CD. A three minute song therefore requires 30 megabytes of data.

If you have ever tried to download files from the Internet, you know that 30 megabytes is huge. If you are using a modem to connect to the Internet, 30 megabytes of data would take several hours to download.