Part two of the great Yamazaki OST series!!
Enjoy!

The cutoff that your encoding produced looks like it cutted from that 160 kbps, so my conclusion is that either you transcoded or ripped from a CD-R burned from those 160 kbps files. Higher bitrate or lossless encoding from lossy low bitrate files NEVER enhance the quality. The loss is never recovered from a lossy format.
By the way, your encoding settings give large files at VBR with bitrates that never go below of 224 and yet deliver noticeable distortion. I suggest you to use 320 CBR as it is the closest to lossless, the filesize would be pretty much the same but it will be worth it if you do rip from original CDs (or at least 1:1 copies).
I ripped from my legit copy of the OST that I own.
I use CDex to rip.
if there are better programs for ripping to MP3, please tell me.
I ripped from my legit copy of the OST that I own.
I use CDex to rip.
if there are better programs for ripping to MP3, please tell me.
I hope you use eac rip flac verson!
Maybe it is that CDex program that deliver those weird results, high bitrate VBR and yet low bitrate cutoff, it’s really weird.
I think the best way to get maximum quality is buying an original copy.
Thanks for the work Yamazaki!