About the compression, VBR (Variable Bit Rate) usually produces a smaller file, but it depends on the source since VBR varies the bitrate according to the complexity of the sample. Anything less than 256kbps, for me....is unacceptable. It's just not close enough to CD quality, almost all of my MP3's are 320. Since Hard drives are so cheap, why sacrifice audio quality to pack more songs onto a small drive? Bandwidth is the other side of the story though. Those of you who stream over HPNA, which boggles my mind why you'd want such a worthless networking scheme instead of pulling come Cat5...might just need to compress at 192 and 160kbps. But then again if this is the case, I doubt audio quality is a top priority. If you want audio quality, go with 256 or higher, if you don't have the bandwidth for multiple streams of 256 or 320, then stick with 192...any lower and you'll definitely notice the downside of MP3 compression.