Sorry, Frank... missed your last post before I replied. That must be my Quicktime incorrectly reporting the bitrate, then. Is the VBR set to 'Best'? Are you recording as .wav and converting afterwards, or using the Zoom?

Personally, I don't trust hardware VBR encoding. They can vary quite a bit in quality, plus some older MP3 players don't like VBR (not that there are too many left with that problem). So, you are recording off the store's mixer into a Zoom? Cool.

Sorry to have been such a worrywort....