Bitrate changed

Hi, guys. I have a Windows 7 and Audacity 3.2.4, that I have just downloaded. The problem is that when I open a MP3 320 kbps music in Audacity and export it again, the bitrate is changed to 184 kbps. I’m used to Audacity since long time ago and this problem had never occurred with the previous versions. Can you help me? Am I failing to do something or is there a problem in the current version 3.2.4 of Audacity? Thanks in advance.

When you export you can select constant bitrate and 320kbps. See [u]User Manual[/u].

…Note that when you open an MP3 it gets decompressed and Audacity doesn’t remember the original bitrate. If you re-export to MP3 you are going through another generation of lossy compression and some damage does accumulate. You may not hear any degradation, but it’s something you should be aware of and try to minimize the number of times it’s compressed/re-compressed.

There are applications such as [u]mp3DirectCut[/u] that can do some limited editing without decompressing.

Thank you for your advice. I read the user manual and also the characteristics of mp3DirectCut.