Yes the sound quality is poor but not by much. It’s a very minimal difference, at least from what I can tell. I am partially deaf in one ear so maybe I am wrong. But still, it’s insane the amount of copyright infringement that goes on on that site. And it’s not just music, they got entire movies as well that anyone can DL. So why is Youtube left alone?
My theory is they donate massive amounts to the DNC. Probably to the Repubs as well being that the Repub party today is mostly RINO. It’s a shame because writing good music, recording it is no easy task which may explain why most of new music today is utter crap. The real talent doesn’t want to put in the effort as it immediately gets stolen. David Bowie for example said he isn’t touring to support his new album because what is the point? So more people can rip it off?? To me I don’t blame the downloaders. I blame these companies like Youtube who can more than afford to monitor this stuff, but again for some reason they aren’t and it’s probably because they arent being sued and as I result they don’t do it. New bands must go through hell today.
This site gives information on the bitrates available from YouTube. Generally speaking, the best audio is available from the highest resolution videos. You can definitely hear the difference when you play a video at the lowest resolution setting.
Of course, the old saying “garbage in, garbage out” certainly applies.
http://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p