Plain vanilla MP3 isn't good enough. Its inventer, the Fraunhofer Institute, attempted one evolution with MP3 Pro, which went exactly nowhere. Perhaps better luck will be had with MP3 Surround, a new development from Fraunhofer and electronics company Thomson SA. MP3 Surround encodes and plays back with full 5.1 surround, and is backwards-compatible with regular ol' MP3. Download the encoding/playback client here. (Um, one reminder: You'll need surround speakers attached to the computer.)
