I am not worried about the bitrate as my stand alone MP3 is already playing the same files the PC would play.

I don't want to get into a discussion about bitrates here, but my opinion is that most people's equipment and ears aren't good enough to notice the difference from a decently encoded mp3 (128MBPS or higher). I encode mine at 160KBPS. If you can tell the difference with your ears/epuipment, then knock yourself out and don't compress.