Don't confuse upld with dwnld. Upld is what people dwnld from you. Dwnld is what you get from them.

So you're a mac osx user right? May I higly recommend you don't use LW's media player. Instead, use iTunes. Go to your LW Preferences (under the LW name at top left) & go to Player & disable LW's media player. Press the Apply button. Now every time you launch a song it will be played by iTunes. It will sound a damned sight better!

128 kbps is about the minimum you should dwnld. Try to find versions that are higher in quality (up to 320 kbps.) You can search songs using both the audio search & the general search types. The latter can sometimes find xtra results. When your search results start showing up, click or cdouble-click on the top of the Bitrate column. This will organise the search results into their bit-rates. Choose the highest to dwnld. If unsuccessful then choose the next level down.

I assure you you can get some very decent mp3's thru LW. Just need to know what to look for & recognise those that are fake or recorded off radio/re-processed or corrupt. You'll catch on with experience. You could learn a bit faster if you search the forum such as about bit rate, T3, 320, riaa, ... these are good searches to aim for on this forum.