- 1411Kbps are WAV/Uncompressed audio files. - 128Kbps 44100Hz MP3's aren't that bad actually. even 96Kbps Vorbis sound great. - re-encoding an existing MP3 files is useless, since MP3 is a lossy audio format, no matter at what bitrate you're encoding, the re-encoded MP3 file will always be of less quality! Encoding MP3's from CD's/WAV's/lossless audio formats is the rights way to do. - as for your X-Fi soundcard, it could be anything; wrong settings, wrong driver...