128, 160 and now VBR. My collection is looking seriously patchy ;)

Mine, too. For a while I was satisified with 128, but that was when I was listening to the MP3s on a cheap computer soundcard. After getting the Empeg, I discovered that 128 isn't enough. The higher-quality amps and speakers in my car allowed me to hear artifacts that I didn't notice on my computer. Now I'm slowly going through my collection and re-encoding everything with the Xing VBR engine.

Incidentally, if you're switching to the Xing VBR encoder that's in AudioCatalyst, I suggest that you skip the middle bitrate setting (called "Normal") altogether and go straight for the next one up, the one called "Normal/High".

The "Normal" setting produces files that are slightly smaller than a 128kpbs file, and although the high-frequency artifacts are less frequent, there is still a slight quality loss if you listen closely on some material. If you go with "Normal/High", you get files that are slightly bigger than 128kbps files, but the quality is much better.

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Tony Fabris