I have to agree with you on that. As a former disciple of MMJB I learned that you have to mess with the custom settings and definitely get the encoder to expand the upper bandwidth to 20Khz. The default is 16Khz, so if you didn't change this it should be very easy have a good majority of your music start to sound muddy. I switched over to EAC and LAME about two months ago and haven't looked back. I am still in the process of reripping and encoding over 300 CD's. The difference in the sound is very noticable from MMJB. It takes a little bit of work to set up but once you do it works great. I also just discovered LAME-B which you run on a command line that does have a little learning curve but lets you encode, tag and place files into a directory structure via artist\album\track that saves a lot of time.

It just seems to me that if you want the best equipment in your car, then don't you want to use the best software to make your music as well? My system consists of Focal separates and subs being run by McIntosh amps and a studio quality crossover. I was really being held back by my software before switching to EAC-LAME. I can definitely hear a difference now. IMHO as your equipment gets better it is easier to here glitches and such from inferior recorded MP3's. Good Luck.