Hi from Italy and sorry for my bad english.

I need to buy two songs online from allofmp3 which are NOT available in lossles quality.

I need the best quality possible, so i think i'll download in MPC BRAINDEAD quality.

Is this choice good for a future conversion to APS mp3 ?
Or should I download the OGG or MP3 @320 for best transcoding to APS mp3 ?

Thanks

You are better of downloading the freeformat mp3 and then transcoding it to a lossless format. At least that way you will get PC playback without further quality loss. MP3 > MP3 can perform poorly in many cases.

hm ?
a transcode from ca. 384(640) kbit freemformat mp3 to Losless does not make any sense to me ?
A transcode from 384(640) k mp3 to Lossless will result in most/many cases to higher bitrates than the lossy mp3@640freeformat source ?!

And you lose the psychological warning, not to transcode it to other lossy formats. If you have once the mp3 in Lossless format, you are in danger to "forget", that it is lossy, and you might think, "oh, what a nice Lossless, I transcode to mpc, ogg, mp3, aac", which could ruin the quality of these other formats.

What you might do, is transcoding from 384-640freeformat-mp3 to 128k or 192k, as vbr preferrable.
But all in all it would be lossy-lossy trabnscoding with extra-introduced artefacts.
Just order your mp3 in your desired target quality/bitrate if possible ?
Or go for MPC --quality 8 --level (--ms 15), if you want to have a very good lossy file in transparency with high probability. You can transcode to lower mp3 bitrates without sacrificing much compared to lossless source for transcode.

edit-addon:
if the mpc is transcoded from a 384-freeformat mp3 source of allmp3.com, then it is not worth t do it in high quality mpc, just take the 384k "original".

If you are planning to download and then transcode, check this posting:

Short re-encoding blind listening test, wavpack - mp3 - mpc - aac -

Not really what I meant.. The 384k freeformat will be the highest quality file he can get. Problem: not much plays FF - so encode it to lossless, at least that way you can playback the highest quality file. You can add 'FREEFORMAT' in the comment field for a warning.

If he orders MPC , it is still encoded from 384k FF.

shadowking, are you sure they'll not end up transcoding 384kbps FF to 384kbps FF?

I did some tests back when that site was all the rage, and I really don't think they do that. Yes, I know you were joking, and it was a good one too lol.

In any case, I agree with shadowking's logic. Its what I would do anyways. That way transcoding is in your hands rather than theirs, and you can transcode as man times as you want, to as many formats as you want. Personally I would not use allofmp3, unless I didn't care as much as I do about quality (never mind the possible legal ramifications, which is still up in the air).