| low bitrate mp3 encoding can easily make stereo stuff mono if you're using a joint-stereo method.
the encoder has 128 kilobits per second (16KB) to get as much of your sound encoded as possible. if you're using joint stereo, it splits those 128kbps unevenly between the M and S channels to keep it as "good" sounding as possible. at higher bit rates it can use more on the S channel and you keep a bit more fidelity on your overall stereo image. |