looks like i was not careful during some ripping and used "Joint Stereo" instead of true Stereo MP3 encoding.

I highly doubt that. The difference between Joint Stereo and True Stereo is incredibly subtle and difficult to pick out, especially at decent bit rates.

I believe that if you're having stereo image problems with your MP3s, then the problem is your combination of computer/drive/ripper/settings. The ripper is actually ripping the files incorrectly, skipping bytes here and there and causing the stereo image of the audio to mess up.

The faq entry on the subject is here, check it out.

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Tony Fabris