I made a new discovery on the weekend to do with mp3 encoding. Previously I have used Nero as they have a good mpeg encoder (used for video/dvd sound - technically mp3 is actually mpeg but not quite). But I never liked the mp3 sound - too harsh a treble, and too pingy.
So i did some research and discovered Lame - i had know about it previously but the penny hadn't dropped. Lame is a free codec, and is useless on its own - it has to be complied then incorporated into another program. Some music programs can and do use Lame, but if you don't have one of those, then RazorLame is the go (also free)
The results are excellent - i have re-encoded all my own music i have on this forum as of the last few days (seven toes was in the new coding from the start). So if anyone likes any of those pieces, download them again, they are much better now.
If you want to do your own mp3 encoding, this is a really good site to explain how it's done:
http://mp3.radified.com/i'm now much happier to put mp3 versions of music on the web, but to my ears, the original wav files are much better. Also digital is no way as good as tape analogue - a lot of people criticised cassette tape sound, but the problem was never with the cassettes, it was with the players people used, and their condition. Digital has a hardness that analogue doesn't have, still you would need to do a comparison on good equipment to notice the difference.
If you want to get the best sound from mp3, convert them back to wav format with some program (Nero will also do that fine), then burn them to CD and play through your stereo system. Sound cards on computers are not very good, and I suspect they also do an on-the-spot wav conversion before sending it out to the speakers or headphones, which is ok except they are low level sound cards (eg, I have a sound card for recording that costs $6,000 - you don't pay for nothing).
