system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 - Why is it that the hold music for all companies (including tech and telecom) sounds as though it's being played on a wax cylinder, captured by a tin can phone, and broadcast through stripped telegraph wires on a windy day?

Seriously. How is this possible? It's LOUD. It crackles. What the f*ck crackles anymore?

EDIT: Thanks for the responses, but I'm still baffled. So everyone seems to agree that the phone system isn't built for music, too little bandwidth, etc. That being the case and with it being clearly so pervasive despite the fact that a huge swath of people seem to understand the issue, I'm left wondering how every single company (c'mon... hyperbole is fun) could possibly have come to the same conclusion when they hooked up their on hold music and found it to be totally broken: namely, "Meh. Good enough."

Sorry. This has now become a rant, but I would still honestly like to hear from someone who is responsible for that aspect of their company's business. Justify yourself!
gpt
Because it's being transmitted at a bitrate between 5.6kbps (kilobits per second) and 64kbps depending on all of the systems involved, whereas 128kbps is considered by many to be the lowest ok-quality mp3 and 320kbps is considered to be close to CD quality.

Lower bitrate = more compression = crappier sound. It works ok for voice (mostly because they've discovered a ton of technology to make it that way), but not for complex recorded music.