Hello, Farris,
If you have 44.1/16 WAV files on a server already, and your listening
"dumb terminal" can connect to that server over 100 Mb/s Ethernet,
then there may be no need to go to the trouble of making MP3 files
from the WAV files.
The WAV file is only running at 1.4 Mb/s, much less than the capacity
of a 100 Mb/s of the Ethernet connection. I can run 44.1/16 WAV files
reliably over a wireless 802.11g network (one file is all I've ever
tested).
There is significant variability between MP3 encoders. When I run the
one that comes with Samplitude (and I'm not sure which one it is any
more, since I didn't have to execute a separate license as I did in
the past) there is an option for highest quality that takes about 5x
as long to encode as the lowest quality. The highest quality at 128
kb/s and above (I like doing music at 192 kb/s) sounds very much like
the original WAV files.
I recently received a 160 kb/s MP3 of a song to audition done by a
recording engineer that sounded substantially worse than the 128 kb/s
Windows Media file ripped by the artist for my convenience. When I
finally got the CD, neither sounded as close as the MP3s I make. For
larger projects, I usually batch convert MP3s overnight as I cannot
take the time during the work day to run them.
I was totally amazed at the difference in quality between various
lossy encoders and don't want to repeat the experiment with the song
noted above.