Folks,
I'm working on a website and I want to have a variety of audio samples (of around 30 seconds in length) on the site for people to download.

Now, the files are all MP3 format, and I'm using Sound Forge... trouble is... I haven't got a clue what format of MP3 to go for. There are a few presets like FM radio quality, near CD quality etc and they all have different kb/second rates.

Does anyone know what a good MP3 encoding rate is for websites which gives a reasonable sound, but with a quick download?

What are the standard settings for websites anyway?

I've scoured the Net and nobody seems to know. You're my last hope!

Thanks

128 kb/s is good, 192 is better, anything above that and there's not much of a difference. Anything below 128 tends to be ass.

Thank you Cloakboy for that short but perfect answer!

Hello.............160kbs is my favorite bitrate..............cloakboy is right on the mark!
Good luck.

Allthough I do agree, what you should consider is that 128Kbps is good enough to rip your sounds. (a good equaliser over the ripped file can fill the gaps.)
This is the reason that a lot of websites use 64Kbps old mp3 layer 1 format!

Note:
My favorite is 256Kbps

Yeah... I can dig what you're saying.

I mean, the thing that shocked me most about the whole vibe was not so much the quality, but the amount of space that gets taken up with these sound files.

For just 30 seconds worth of music it seems to be using up about a third to half a meg... and that just blows my mind.

I was hoping to put loads of samples on this site (at least a hundred), but the way things are going I'm going run out of web space before I've even got out of the starting blocks.

It's a hard life.

Try out Thompson mp3 Pro encoder.
At 64kb you get the same quality as for 128kb with other encoders. And anyway, this is for download purposes, say just to check out, so consider using smaller bitrates for higher download speed.
funkster1

MP3.com uses 128kb which is like " middle of the road "

I read somewhere that .wma is better for lower bitrates and I dug it up for you (its a microsoft page so I guess its biased)
http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/pocketpc/columns/wmatogo.asp

and I dont know how much extra compression you'd get zipping the files but I suppose any less is good right?