Mp3 Enhancer.

Jesse’s answer regarding 128k mp3 files is spot on. Low bitrate MP3 files absolutely do not belong in a broadcast environment. Quality starts at the source is (ideally) maintained through the chain. If at any point quality is lost, it can never be regained later in the chain.

I use 320k MP3 or flac, and I’m a "home user", not a radio station. It makes no sense that a radio station, whose sole business is audio, would use less than that — especially not with todays cost of storage media.

///Leif

[quote author=”Leif”]Jesse’s answer regarding 128k mp3 files is spot on. Low bitrate MP3 files absolutely do not belong in a broadcast environment. Quality starts at the source is (ideally) maintained through the chain. If at any point quality is lost, it can never be regained later in the chain.

I use 320k MP3 or flac, and I’m a "home user", not a radio station. It makes no sense that a radio station, whose sole business is audio, would use less than that — especially not with todays cost of storage media.

///Leif[/quote]

The fact is that there are stations out there who are run by people who think they know better and even worse, have no concept of audio quality. I have heard stations playing audio which as absolutely awful but the even more frustrating thing is that 99% of the listeners do not seem to notice, nor care about the quality.
I think it come down to the fact that in this day and age, many are used to the sound of low bitrate audio and have become unaware of the difference between the source audio and a poor copy.
Speak to most station managers nowadays and they will tell you that audio quality is well down the list of priorities, money is their "sole business" audio is merely part of their product. Engineers may think differently but nowadays many of these lack the kind of passion and commitment that used to taken for granted.

[quote author=”Leif”]However, my hope lies with the fact that people do take notice when they come across really good audio. It’s one way a station can stand out above all the ones that don’t care.[/quote]

Exactly, which goes to show that people DO notice when it’s bad too, they just don’t know why they don’t like it without proper training.

A self proclaimed processing guru, who I won’t name here, had quite a good analogy that even radio GMs could understand. Imagine taking a jpg thumbnail and blowing it up to be twenty feet on a side. That’s what an mp3 sounds like when it runs through an audio chain.

I can tell you that since I switched to Breakaway I’ve noticed several crappy sounding mp3s in my library and have been replacing them as I find them. Nothing like a "shit magnifying glass" to keep you honest!