getting 32 kbps dowloads
 

quite often my downloads will come in at 32kbps and about 15 mins long regardless of the bitrate indicated when choosing the download. why? how do i fix this?

bitrate != how fast the transfer will take place. 32KB/s is probably your connections speed.. if your on dialup or something. ;)

i am on dsl. i have many times chosen to download a song at 128 / 160 /192 kbps etc etc. when the download comes in and i play it on wmp, there is no sound and media player shows it as 32 kbps and anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes long. over 50% of my downloads are now doing this

Have a look at the Downld/Upld Problems Sticky (click on link) & look at the links for "T3 Spammers; mp3 Bit-Rates Versus File Sizes" & also "Most Popular Songs R' Corrupt" & that will tell you both why & how to avoid it. There are mp3 fixers but they might not necessarily be able to repair those ones.

no luck yet but thanks. heres what ive done:
-selected song (mp3) with 5586 kb cable/dsl speed (avoided T3) and 128 bitrate.
-even hovered over it to review its properties/info. all looked good
-downloaded it fine
-played in win med player and it does play but with no sound, 32 K bits/second and 16:07 long. my visualization appears to have slowed down too.
-tried to repair this file with "mp3repairtool link b (free)" in your previous posted link dr tag reair and still no luck
could this just be a media player problem rather than the downloads im getting?

You'd know for sure if you had another player. But I doubt it. It's probably corrupt as suggested. For newly released popular music, you can expect similar results unless you're careful. Some other users have also probably downlded these files & have them sitting in their share folder but haven't yet checked them. Try other sources again if you can find them, but make sure the file size is different if it's the same bit-rate. So don't choose one that's 5586 kb in size if it's 128 kbps bit-rate.

ie: if it's a reasonably new & popular release, then don't downld the same size & bit-rate of those from T3 sources. Particularly if there seems to be mainly or a high no. of T3 sources of the same size.


(BTW Bit rates can vary depending on many factors such as length, particular music & encoder brand used.)