In 1988 the MPEG committee asked for an audio coding standard, and 14 proposals arrived in 1989. Those were grouped into four families, and MP3 descended from perceptual codecs that exploit the ear's limits. Those codecs discard sounds the ear is unlikely to notice, such as quiet tones hidden beside louder ones at the same frequency. Karlheinz Brandenburg, working with James Johnston at Bell Labs and at the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen, refined this approach into the format. Brandenburg tested each version on the same a cappella recording to be sure the voice still sounded right.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.