I tried the XiNG codec via AudioCatalyst and was not impressed with the quality, too much aliasing even at 128k.

Interesting... I switched from Fraunhofer to Xing because I could still hear aliasing in Fraunhofer High Quality even at 128k.

The trick is that Xing can do variable bit rate. The high-frequency aliasing and artifacts go away when you do VBR. That's the advantage of AudioCatalyst: When you do the middle-quality VBR, you get better sound than Fraunhofer at 128k-fixed, for about the same file size.

Did you test AudioCatalyst in Variable Bit Rate mode or just 128k-fixed?

Tony Fabris
Empeg #144