The calculation described assumes a CD contains a single mono audio channel. But CDs, of course, are stereo, so it actually takes TWICE as many bits to store a five-minute song. So if two songs that have distinct stereo mixes but downmix to the exact same mono song are to be considered different, then there are actually 2^423,360,000 possible 5-minute songs: a number with over 127 million digits!
stereo
The calculation described assumes a CD contains a single mono audio channel. But CDs, of course, are stereo, so it actually takes TWICE as many bits to store a five-minute song. So if two songs that have distinct stereo mixes but downmix to the exact same mono song are to be considered different, then there are actually 2^423,360,000 possible 5-minute songs: a number with over 127 million digits!