MP3 conversion ---> Does this make sense?

[stray411]

Hey everybody. I got a situation here that I'm having a hard time figuring out and I'm wondering if anyone here can shed some light on this for me. I have some tracks up on my mp3 site that were encoded using Lame32 at 128 kbits (I can't upload at 192 kbits because I'm not a preferred member). The tracks sound just fine when played back but when uploading to mp3, as I'm sure you all know, they create a lo-fi version as well as a hi-fi version. The hi-fi version sounds fine but the lo-fi sounds horrible. I've checked some other mp3 sites out and found that others lo-fi versions don't sound as good as the hi-fi version but a lot closer than what I'm dealing with.

Now I've heard that mp3's conversion process sucks but I'm just wondering how others can maintain a decent level whereas I'm losing so much quality-wise. Lame32 is supposed to be a good encoder right? Is there another encoder that would produce better results here? Am I doing something wrong or is this normal?

I've included a link to my site below as an example of what I'm referring to. Any insight here would be extremely helpful.

Thanks

Sam

www.mp3.com/PerpetualProductio

 

[drstawl]

I've found that the success of those "lo-fi" conversions is dependent on the content as well as the quality of the 128Kbps mp3 they use to make the lo-fi version.