I often see this information about bit rates on my audio files, but I have a hard time understanding it. I know digital formats vary in quality, but does bit rates also affect the quality of the file?
Don't know if it affects the quality of the file, but bitrate certainly affects the quality of the sound. The lower the bitrate, the more sound was trimmed out to save file space when creating it so the worse it sounds. If you want a near-true sound, go for a high bitrate or lossless.