I'm wondering what is up with the whole sources thing. I leave my PC on 24/7 as i imagine many people do (so we never miss that moment when someone comes back online). I allow 9999 uploads ( i only have 5000 to share ). I'm assuming that people don't think to change the number of downloads people can make. So when i'm after a collection of music that someone has, i can only get about half of it and then i must wait for someone else to download the other half so Limewire will find more sources. This is stupid. Why can't Limewire et al. simply allow all shared files to be downloaded, limited by the number of simultaneous dl / ul as it already is. If hogging becomes an issue then make Limewire "leapfrog" the queue so that everyone in the queue gets a fair share. I'm sitting here right now with a many files partially finished (waiting for them to get back online?) and way too many files "awaiting/needing soures". Why is there no help file explaining exactly what this means? All i know is intuition.

Just a thought. But this really bugs me.

Oh and by the way, there is no option in Limewire to "force IP address" to improve connection. Other threads mentioned this and i think it's bolony. I personally never have a problem. Just these darned sources...

Forced IP is when you're behind a firewall, more notably a connection device that uses internal firewall such as NAT. It moreso applies to upload ability than downld ability but in rare cvircumstances may apply to both. It certainly is true that if you're uploading your search & downld results will be much better.

I see you Resume & use Find Sources buttons on your files. This is fine if it's on some during a session. But I don't recommend it for all files when you 1st open LW. It's most effective if you've previously been downlding from that source that session & search results for that file are present.

I personally believe more effective is to manually search the file topic. If it stops downlding stop it from the downld list & reselect it from the search results. Back that up with occasional new fresh searches to find new people online. See: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=34114

Also, you can downld whole albums if there's ones for the artist you're interested in are available. See: Downlding whole albums & Albumwrap

Hope this is of some help!

This makes me nuts too, Massive. You can Search, see a cut, click download, and you get Needs More Sources. WHY? And why can't anyone explain it?

Thank you LOR. Incidentally i planned on trying that, but i accidentally closed LW and lost my search results. The thing is, I am now sifting through one or two hundred track titles for this one particular collection and am having a hard time chosing which ones need re-dl'd. I notice some of your other threads are closed, and would like to comment about whole albums. I have many many whole albums for everyone, and have set limewire to allow everyone to dl every single one. They are perfect CD rips and i don't want people having a hard time separating them. WMP finds all the tag info thus easing organization. So with patience 5 tracks can be dl'd at a time up to a combined 20kBps, so i'm not loosing much bandwidth, and soon the entire album is yours. Anyway, i suppose i should start over and do one album at a time, again for organization's sake. This is going to take a while.

If I can be a PIA, may I suggest you encode them at nothing less than 192 kbps. Some people say 128 is cd equivalent but that's pure B.S. It's not! Far from it.

MP3's tax music, usually starting with the top & bottom frequency ranges & also possibly if you choose so joint stereo. That means loss of stereo headroom. Try listening to a cd using headphones & then listen to an mp3 encoded at 128 using headphones. If it's a song that has particular stereo separation then you will greatly notice the difference. Not to mention possible loss of bass & high frequencies. This is just a suggestion.

Songs that are encoded at 160 or above are much more attractive to others than 128 which unfortunately is the default of many mp3 encoders. eg: iTunes says below 128 is only good for talkback, yet 128 is cd quality hahaha. ie: roughly like recording on a very very cheap speak only audio tape not designed for music. Just making a suggestion so it's purely up to you. I've been thinking for a long time about making a post about unravelling the myths behind encoding music. Despite the mp2 & mp3 chitter chatter about encoding nothing compares to true listening experience.

There is a pair of MP3 player sunglasses from THUMP (see it at thumpinfo.com) where i have heard that some users of these awesome shades re-rip their mp3's at higher rates because they don't sound the same (Oakley THUMP utilizes the entire 20kHz human hearing range). I, however, play my music through my computer using standard Media Player 10 on a 200 watt surround sound system, and i don't notice a difference. My friend, who i just burned a CD for (from 128bit compression) doesn't notice a difference on his BOSE system.

Ripping of CD's is a very argumentative topic (for want of a better word; disputeable is the better word.) Lots of people have their own opinions & will swear by them. I don't go for the 128 kbps as being cd equivalent. I think it also depends on the exact music & its tonal qualities, frequency ranges, stereo separation, etc. I believe lossless formats like aiff, wav, apple lossless & another I can't remember off-hand are the audiophilist's dream. mp3's cap the top & bottom frequency ranges but if you're listening to music where those ranges are not so important or noticeable then fine. Just that I've been disappointed with some lame & ogg vorbis encoded at 128. I found the difference particularly noticeable. But as I suggested that was for particular music.

How can less bits of information (less than 1/12th) of the original when using 128 is going to be as good as cd?