Hi Tg,
I thought it was only Cats that got doctored?
I presume you mean since quality is NOW a trading factor, that some unscrupulous individuals will be decoding & re-encoding at a false higher bit rate?
That should be easy to spot, by doing a FFR analysis of the spectrum, a genuine original will have the full spread, whereas the re-encoded one will be limited to the spectrum signiture of the original encoder.
To the point about the "reds" in a previous post, Yes I noticed that too as typical of the old Xing encodes, but the new one is supposed to be a lot better, though the Blade was always better than the Xing, it was always terribly slow.
I still reckon the fastest encoder is the FhG in AudioActive Pro.
There was in the other thread on MP3 quality, a throwaway comment about Sound Forge and its handling of MP3, I cannot find that thread entry again, so if the original poster would identify themselves here, I'd be pleased to have some review information on this reported problem...
Snark..