As mentioned earlier, 256 w/VBR isn't an option for my setup of EAC/LAME.

Its worth mentioning that all VBR options with lame won't give you the same quality. I'm not sure how to setup EAC, but you probably want to use either "preset standard" which will give you a VBR file averaging a bit over 200 or "preset extreme" which is the next step up. These presets have been tweaked to give the best possible output by combining a variety of lame options and it is worth figuring out how to get lame to use them.

-Mike

EDIT: Hmm, I think there is an echo in here...