[Winamp]What's difference between Joint Stereo and Stereo??
 

which one is better rip from cd track??

I found this a long time ago and saved it for some reason.
Can't remember where...

Q : What's the difference between the various stereo modes?
A : It's important to understand the difference between Stereo and Joint Stereo. 'Joint Stereo' modes take advantage of the similarities between the L+R channels. This allows more bits to be used in other areas and in many case this can give an overall gain in encoding quality. Almost all encoders use joint stereo when encoding at 128 kbits.

Joint stereo has 2 submodes called IS and MS. 'Joint Stereo IS' destroys phase information and shouldn't be used for high-quality encoding. Joint Stereo MS' means Middle/Side and is OK for use in most encoding.

However, for some audio, Joint Stereo MS may create a 'flanging' or 'swishing' effect. In these cases it's better to use 'Stereo mode'. This mode creates 2 independent channels for both left and right. When stereo mode is used, you should also use a higher bitrate (160 or 192 kbits) - Stereo mode will allocate about half of this bitrate for each channel.
In summary, for most audio, Joint Stereo MS at 128 or 160 kbits should be fine. If your audio is especially 'wide' and creates flange you should use 'Stereo' mode.

Maybe someone else here can either dispute this or agree with it.

I concur with the above. Actually it's somewhere on the forums. TSGH or maybe I just read it in an earlier thread.

I've seen this discussion over and over again, debated all over the Net, and here many many times. I used to encode all my mp3's at Stereo Mode, because it just made since, since I wanted to maintain the same stereo balance as the original recording. Actually, that still makes a lot of sense to me. But, because all the debates usually lead to Joint Stereo being best for 128K encoding, I have switched to that. And to be honest, I can't tell a single bit of difference, either in the sound quality or size of the mp3. I believe you would have to have dog hearing to find any difference.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s= will tell all.

ABX the 2 files, one in joint and the other in stereo.