I'm reading a lot of conflicting advice from websites on the relative merits of both formats, so i thought i'd try putting the question out here to see if i can get a definitive answer. Thanks in advance, chasin_h
With lame (3.9x) joint stereo is better for any bitrate. Some other encoders may have problems with badly implemented joint stereo, that's why some people still recommend 'full stereo'. In-depth information about this you'll find at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org (-> search function) or in the hydrogenaudio wiki, e.g. starting here: http://doc.hydrogenaudio.org/search?SearchableText=joint+stereo If you play back your mp3s through some 'fake-surround' device like Dolby Prologic and not through plain stereo setup, joint stereo *might* have problems, but in this case all lossy compressed sources can have problems anyway as lossy codecs are not desigend for processing *after* encoding.
