Some observations.
For me (several years ago), MP3 was a too fiddly. Encoders like LAME had oodles of options and it was fun for a short while to fiddle with them. But it felt a lot like getting HiFi out of a cassette: a lot of work for only a little gain. That's why people settle on 192kbps - that's a good compromise of size vs quality.
Ogg Vorbis, OTOH, usually sounds better at ~108 than MP3 at 192, if you can hear a difference. And the Vorbis encoders encourage you to use a "quality" option rather than fart about with small adjustments. -q3 gives you about 108 for mainstream pop and rock music. However, Ogg Vorbis is most widely supported on PCs. Most devices that can play MP3 cannot play Ogg Vorbis, alas. (This is the same problem as with AAC aka the iPod format.)
I have been a quiet fan of MiniDisc since, well, forever. I finally got myself one of those new-fangled HiMD recorders a few months back. It's (mostly) brilliant. And ATRAC3+ at 64kps is just as good as Vorbis as 108. And it Just Works. SonicStage (Sony's ATRAC software) doesn't know anything about Ogg Vorbis, unfortunately, though it can import MP3.
*sigh*
So I've burnt all my Oggs off to a DVD (I had about 6Gb of them) and begun switching to MD and ATRAC. Sony make CD players that can play ATRAC CDs, which is a useful expansion path. Yeah, I've sold out. What of it?
Wade.
