I would agree with Tony. I've got over 2000 songs on my Empeg (not many by some peoples standards, but quite a few none-the-less), most of which have been encoded with Musicmatch in joint-stereo. I think I'm quite sensitive to things not sounding how they should and I haven't noticed any wierdness in the stereo image at all in these files. So to reiterate what Tony's said I don't think joint-stereo is your problem.

ahh... I must update my signature. Just slapped in another 20GB drive. That makes 32GB
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the "Adding a drive" FAQ. I couldn't have done it without it

beaker
12 gig blue/magenta/orange/yellow (at the moment :-))