Actually the the bit rate of PCM (16-bit) and the bit rate of Mp3 (256kbps) are alittle different but in terms of quality the same. Instead of kbps and Khz. KHz is just what Simon said, it's just the frequency lenght/sample rate of a audio sample. Like the Eq settings, 1khz. Cd's and Mp3's are both 44.1KHz. Now kbps means "kilo bytes per sec", this is just how much audio data is in one second of audio. 16-bit is the quality or resolution of the audio. Cd's are 16-bit audio. Since Mp3's are compressed audio they get the term kbps, they are still 16-bit but they can be compressed alot smaller in size. These three terms are completely different. The minimum spec that you should settle for on a recording hardware is 16bit, 44.1khz or higher. If you see kbps in the recording hardware specs this means the recording audio is compressed, your better off with the uncompressed. Some are 24 bit but since cd's are only 16 bit it's probably not a huge deal until they come up with something better. 32-bit is true-tape.