Pat Coghlan

I have SonicStage 4.3. It refuses to import the 16 kHz MP3 files, but will import the 40 kHz MP3 files. Sonic Stage will transfer the 40 kHz file without conversion, but then the NW-E403 indicates CANNOT PLAY, or something similar. If I convert it to 66 kHz ATRAC3 etc., it plays okay. I guess there's no audio benefit to converting it to a higher sampling rate (e.g. from 40 to 192 kHz).

Each week I've been downloading MP3 podcasts that are recorded with 16 kHz and 40 kHz sampling rates (see http://www.europac.net/radioshow_archives.asp and http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html). These used to play fine directly on my iPAQ hx4700 (but is rather bulky to carry around) without conversion, but the Sony NW-E403 is smaller and it's a hand-me-down from my 14 year-old who just got an iPod nano. Deal was: I pay for the shipping and she pays for the iPod...and I get her NW-E403. Sonicstage won't import the 16 kHz MP3 files at all and I'm not sure what conversion I should specify for the 40 kHz files. The NW-E403 seems to fill up pretty fast if I convert to 128 kHz. Does it even make sense to convert to something above the encoded rate? What freeware will convert the sampling rate within an MP3 file?