I just recently upgraded to the 24 bit version of the program. Now when I try to encoded an mp3 from the song, I get a high pitched squeeling when I try and play the mp3 version. The wav version working fine.
I use WinAmp as my player. For the encoder, I tried Easy CD Ripper and dBpowerAMP. I think it is the encoder not the player.
Thanks for any help. 
SaxAppeal
It might be that your mp3 encoder doesn’t like a 24-bit source.
You could always give Goldwave and Lame mp3 encoder a go, it’s supposed to be the best quality (free) encoder:
http://www.goldwave.com/release.php
(Lame link on the same page)
good question… i have wondered about this myself. can an encoding utility (ie lame) take a 24 bit audio source and create an mp3 from that? would we potentially have a better mp3? this is now delving outside of my knowledge of audio bitrate… what “bitrate” is an mp3?
dbpoweramp is a good encoding util, which i believe uses lame also (both dbpoweramp and goldwave use lame to do the actual encoding)… so i’m not sure changing apps will help. i tried the same thing you did once, out of curiousity, and got the same result.
Well the bit-rate of an mp3 is whatever you set it to (ie 128kbps or 160kbps CBR, or some VBR setting).
However, the bit-depth is not an option I see available when encoding mp3s (in Goldwave and Lame).
Perhaps you will have to use a 16-bit .wav source for your mp3s? I imagine it would get downsampled first thing by any mp3 encoder anyway. I’m sure a boffin will come along soon and answer your question properly.
I mixdown the song as a 24 bit wav file and then encoded it as an MP3 file using Goldwave. It worked fine.
Solved my issue. 
So I guess dbPA couldn’t code it correctly.
It should convert it to 16 bits under the hood then encode it, or if the app is not coded to do the conversion it should refuse to encode it.
When I try to encode a 24 bit file to mp3 using db-PowerAmp I get this error: The CODEC required to compress ‘E:\music\song_60\song_60_mixdown01.mp3’ could not be opened.
Sax, you should report this problem to Spoon over at the dBPowerAmp forum.
However, I always convert to 16-bit in n-Track so that I can dither (and control the dither). It’s best to dither when converting from 42-bit to 16-bit format, but dBPowerAmp doesn’t support dithering.
Note that if the original material contains enough white noise, dithering isn’t necessary, but on the other hand, proper dithering never hurts.
I generally use the following settings for n-Track when dithering: 1 bit, noise shaping.
Folks who are pickier use other programs for dithering (generally, not cheap ones). n-Track’s noise shaping algorithm isn’t the best, but it’s good enough for me. IIRC, folks tend to like Gold Wave’s dithering.
so does this mean that encoding an mp3 requires a 16 bit source before any actual compression will take place? i’m wondering if the 24 to 16 conversion is taking place before or in the encoder (lame)
I sure don’t know. Spoon of dbPowerAmp probably would.