Karl Engel wrote:
Because stereo wavs take up more space than mono, I've always tended to
email mono files if the file is from a mono source (eg voice-over). This
has affected how my projects are set up, which panning law I use etc. I
just discovered that MP3s of the same content are the same size, mono OR
stereo. Huh? Now this I could perhaps understand if there is no difference
in the content of each channel (still a mono source) but it seems to be the
case even if there originally is stereo content.

When you encode an MP3, you tell the encoder how much actual bandwidth
you have available to send it. Then, the encoder throws stuff away
so that the signal can fit in that bandwidth.

If you have a stereo signal that you want to fit through a given pipe,
and a mono signal you want to fit through the same pipe, the encoder will
throw away a lot more data from the stereo signal, in order to make it
fit.

That's why it's called "lossy encoding" and the amount of loss that you
get depends on the data rate you tell the encoder you have.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."