LW mp3 Sound Quality?

[Rhohl]

Regarding sound quality of the MP3's I've downloaded from LW...

Wondering why(?) the playback of music files (generally)
have too much volume on the instrumental part, with vocals which are too weak?
And, the bass is too heavy(strong)?

Seems to happen regardless of bit rate and the equalizer settings of my chosen player (iTunes 2)
can improve, only marginally, the quality (or balance) of the sound.

Is it the player? Should I use something else?(for a Mac)
Or, is it the nature of the MP3 format?
The sound reminds me of the early days of cassettes (& 8-tracks)
when the bass was often boosted to compensate
for the relatively poor portable sound systems (and bass speakers) available.

My speakers are fairly good...and my own (installed from my CD's @128bits)) music, sound OK.

Any ideas?

[sipher]

Lime wire doesn't effect teh sound quality of the files, it's simply a transport method like ftp, http, e-mail, dcc, etc. Some of the files shared through gnutella or teh competeting technologies are just bad qualiyt. You just have ot try to find a different file.

I use winamp and it has the best sound quality I've found, I don't know if they make a mac version though www.winamp.com (probably not considering the name).

[Rhohl]

Further to my previous,I'm not picking on LW for the quality problem;
the weak vocals and heavy bass occur on at least 75% of my mp3 collection.
The majority are through LW, but there are several other sources I have used and the
problem(?) seems to be everywhere.
This is not a problem with my "homemade" mp3s; from my CDs.

Is it possible that the files are "doctored" by the source(?)...
(ie. by someone who prefers weak vocals/heavy bass)
and the "doctored" mp3s are what I'm downloading?

The iTunes equalizer could (perhaps) correct the sound to my tastes
but I don't have the patience to go through the excercise for more than 250 files.

So what is the (possible/actual) cause?...
bit rate?
nature of the mp3 processing?
"doctoring" of the sound file by the source?
bad player (iTunes 2)?
lazy computer owner?
any ideas, And, has anyone else noticed this? Thanks