My recorded wave files sound great but the mp3's exports sound brutal by comparison - i would expect that you give up a lot through the compression but wondering if it can be better. Even at higher bit rates there is still a huge difference........maybe this is normal? I'm using Audacity and export to wave first, then use Wavelab to export to MP3 format. I believe it uses the LAME encoder however it also gives an option to use Fruanhofer which I haven't tried. If I just use Audacity for both the quality seems even worse.
Is my weak link the shareware im using? I have a 24bit MI Audio card in my PC, a POD and an Alesis Studio 24 mixer.
I pretty much am using the default stereo 24 bit settings in Audacity, but usually compress the final mix before exporting.
Any thoughts as to what i can do to improve the quality of the mp3's, using what i have?
thanks
