What mp3 bitrate settings are compatible with Clip + ?

Hi

I have some audio books I want to put on my Clip+.  I want to minimize the size of the files.  Doesn’t even need to be stereo.  Before I got my Clip+ I burned some of these to mp3 with low settings and my car stereo, which normally plays mp3 data files, couldn’t play them.  So I’m hoping to have better results with my clip+.  I have a couple questions:

Is there a minimum bitrate that I need to use for it to play on the Clip +?   Or do certain bitrates work and not others?

Will the Clip+ play a mono (non-stereo) mp3 file?

Are there any other settings (like frequency) that can affect the Clip+'s ability to play the file?

If anyone could help out here it would save me a lot of time in trying different settings.

Thanks!

Gary in Vermont

The Clip+ and Fuze have so far played every mp3 file I have tried playing on them, including 8 kbps. 8 kbps has much too many artifacts and should be avoided. 16 kbps can sound decent enough if the original recordings are good. Imo using 24 kbps or 32 kbps is worth the extra space though as the sound quality improvement is noticeable. Mono should be used for voice recordings. Some players have trouble with 8 khz sampling rate, however I think the Clip+ and Fuze are okay with it. You could test it. I think most of the lectures I have downloaded were between 16 and 32 kbps mono and 11, 16, or 22 khz sampling rate.

WMA sounds better than mp3 at the same bitrate for low bitrates, however wma is more difficult to decode than mp3, and probably gives about 20% less battery life than mp3. WMA at 12 kbps seems to sound as good as mp3 at 16 kbps. The Clip+ and Fuze will play 12 kbps wma files.

Message Edited by JK98 on 01-08-2010 05:04 PM

Message Edited by JK98 on 01-08-2010 05:27 PM

very helpful!  thanks