It occurs in transform-based audio compression algorithms – typically based on the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) – such as MP3, MPEG-4 AAC, and Vorbis, and is due to quantization noise being spread over the entire transform window of the codec.
Avoiding pre-echo is a substantial design difficulty in transform domain lossy audio codecs such as MP3, MPEG-4 AAC, and Vorbis.
It is also one of the problems encountered in digital room correction algorithms and frequency-domain filters in general (denoising by spectral subtraction, equalization, and others).
One way of reducing "breathing" for filters and compression techniques using piecewise Fourier-based transforms is picking a smaller transform window (short blocks in MP3), thus increasing the temporal resolution of the algorithm at the cost of reducing its frequency resolution.
To better reproduce transient and eliminate pre-echo, lossy audio compression software such as open-source Vorbis encoder (oggenc from vorbis-tools), impulse noise tune or/and bit reservoir can be used as an advanced option.