Sound Encoding - Vorbis details...

...the UI only lists 32, 64, 96, and 128kbps. My question is unfortunately one only a coding Linden is likely to be able to answer. Is the encoding using the standard Ogg Vorbis library in VBR mode at quality -2, 0, 2, and 4 for the various settings, or is it actually using the lower-quality fixed-bitrate mode (either CBR or ABR with a capped bitrate) at the UI-specified bitrates?

Was asking as I was planning to upload numerous sounds and figured it was better to test off-line at the various encoding rates to test quality levels before spending L$, since I wanted to avoid shoving everything up at 128kbps for the stuff that sounded just fine at 32kbps, but didn't want to waste L$ uploading all versions just to delete some and waste the L$.

44khz, 16bit , stereo/mono , wav only in sl sound upload isnt it?

This is what I meant that a Linden is possibly the only person that can answer this question. Second Life only allows WAV files to be selected for upload, but the actual server compressed and republishes the sound files in Ogg Vorbis format, that's the bitrate you're selecting in the UI. 44.1khz@16bits mono would be a fraction under 690kbps, for comparison.

I'm wondering if they're using the 'approximate' bitrate settings and variable-bitrate encoding, or true fixed-bitrate encoding for their Ogg Vorbis encoder, so I can test-encode files offline before selecting the bitrate instead of uploading multiple versions and having to perform more expensive (in L$) listening tests.