There does seem to be two groups of file sharers on WinMX: the 128kbps clueless majority and the obsessive 256/320kbps faction. In my experience, 192kbps is a very happy compromise in the CBR realm but that still isn't used enough (though I see it more and more).
WinMX screws up the reported bitrate for VBR files. If you look at my share list, each file is shown with a different bitrate (a dead ringer that they are all VBR), but what WinMX reports is often a much lower bitrate than what the file actually is. It's either a problem with WinMX or LAME (which I use to encode), though I'm confident it's the former not the latter.
Of the 1456 files I currently have shared, the bitrates vary from 93 to 212kbps, with the median around 144kbps. I use -V 5 which I found reduces filesize by about 6-8% over the default -V 4 and I could not tell any difference in quality between them. 144kbps may sound a little low for the quality-obsessed, but I've done extensive comparisons between my MP3s and the original WAVs and found -V 5 is the best compromise between quality and size. By finding the smallest possible size that still carries very high quality, I can allow more uploads, since bandwidth is finite. Going with 256kbps is a waste, really.
WinMX screws up the reported bitrate for VBR files. If you look at my share list, each file is shown with a different bitrate (a dead ringer that they are all VBR), but what WinMX reports is often a much lower bitrate than what the file actually is. It's either a problem with WinMX or LAME (which I use to encode), though I'm confident it's the former not the latter.
Of the 1456 files I currently have shared, the bitrates vary from 93 to 212kbps, with the median around 144kbps. I use -V 5 which I found reduces filesize by about 6-8% over the default -V 4 and I could not tell any difference in quality between them. 144kbps may sound a little low for the quality-obsessed, but I've done extensive comparisons between my MP3s and the original WAVs and found -V 5 is the best compromise between quality and size. By finding the smallest possible size that still carries very high quality, I can allow more uploads, since bandwidth is finite. Going with 256kbps is a waste, really.
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