I just bought a cut from one of the iTunes Music Store's featured "just added" albums, the "Greatest and Latest" from the Average White Band. (Yes, I'm a closet funk fan.
) The tune is a live one called "Oh Maceo." iTunes reports it as being 287kbps. And indeed its file size is more than 2x the size of an equivalent length 128kbps tune. So I can only assume it's being reported accurately.
So the question is, is this an accident or is Apple flirting with different bitrates? Has anyone else come across anything similar?