Internet Radio settings advice

[NatalieK]

I time shift my radio listening by recording speech programs. Ages ago I found an article recommending Audacity settings for mp3 and I set up an earlier version of Audacity with these settings. I have now activated 1.3.13 Beta (Unicode) and have lost the settings. I have spent hours experimenting and Googling but haven't managed to get the same quality and resonable file sizes. Is there any way I can discover my old settings from an old mp3 file? Can anyone suggest reasonable settings for recording downloaded speech? I am using XP Pro, but can get access to a Vista or a Win 7 computer. Suggestions will be gratefully received as I don't think I will live long enough to solve this by trial and error.

[kozikowski]

Windows Properties might tell you the bitrate that was used for the MP3 encoding. Right-click the sound file > Properties > Advanced.

Audacity default is 128 which will give you very good quality, but may be overkill for you. You also need to know that mono sound files encode at almost half the bitrate and filesize than stereo. Audacity 1.3 has Tracks > Stereo Track to Mono which may be useful.

Fuzzy minimum numbers are 32 for mono and 64 for stereo. Any lower than that, and many people, if not all can tell there's something wrong from the bubbling, gargling and honking.

You don't need to export whole hour shows to experiment with quality. You can drag-select a sample of the work and File > Export Selection instead of just Export.
Koz

[kozikowski]

Unless you removed it, Audacity 1.2 may still be there. You could open it up and read the settings you used to use.
Koz