If those sound click/cloud cats downsize everything, why not downsize it first so they don't have to screw everything up?
 
In other words, can someone please tell me why you wouldn't post an mp3 at 160kb if that is what the "service" scales it to down anyway?
 
The mantra I hear is give them the highest kb file you can, but why?  That seems like giving them the keys to the barn.Mix a good mp3 @ a lower rate and there is less for them to fux up, right?  Help.
 
What's there to take away if it's already gone?
 
Jesse Q. Screed

Soundcloud allows you to download the file.  so if you upload a 24bit/44.1kHz file to soundcloud, even tho it streams in the browser at 128kbps (IIRC) you can download it and play it locally from your machine at 24/44.1.
 
also, with soundcloud, they don't limit you based on space, they limit you based on minutes of the song.  so there's no point in uploading mp3's to soundcloud, IMO since a 5 minute song in mp3 (any bps) is the same "space limit" as a 5 minute 24bit wave file!

upload the best file you have to soundcloud.
then the down conversion they do, will sound as good as it can

Jesse Screed
The mantra I hear is give them the highest kb file you can, but why?  That seems like giving them the keys to the barn.Mix a good mp3 @ a lower rate and there is less for them to fux up, right?  Help.

Because they're going to re-encode it no matter what you give them. At least, Soundclick does. Chalk it up to dumb software. 
 
Here's a question I don't know the answer to: can online players handle VBR? I wonder if that's one of the reasons they want to re-encode it, so it's stored as CBR. I often have to go VBR with SoundClick in order to get the file size under 10MB.