> This question is coming from a relatively naive person:
> Will there be a significant sonic improvement when
> digitizing an analog
> recording at 320kbps compared to 256 kpbs?
> DrG
 
Are they recording the source material directly to mp3? That seems to be an awfully frugal method, considering the low price of hard drive storage.
It is a relatively simple to batch convert the wav files to whatever format you might want from there. 
The significant improvement would be to record to a wav file in the initial capture (at a cost of roughly 10x larger file size). 
I record all my source audio at 24/96 and downsample to 16/44.1 if CD copies are needed.
I think that the difference between 256 and 320 for mp3s is neglible, especially when compared to the difference between mp3 and wav.
Has your friend done any tests to see if he/she can tell a difference?

-Matt Sohn