Ed,
one humble line from your post caught my eye, .mp2 extension trick to squeeze one extra bit of sound quality.
ffmpeg -v 16 -stats -i %url% output.mp2
Do you listen to music on
http://www.shoutcast.com ?
vlc.exe
http://104.236.206.12:9302/stream
start "Praise Radio" streamripper.exe
http://104.236.206.12:9302/stream -d C:\ -o never -u WinampMPEG/5.66
Default appears to be .mp3 128 kb/s for streamripper.
With ffmpeg I get .mp2 384 kb/s.
Good side of streamripper is that it tags .mp3's with names and saves them one by one rather than
one continuous file like ffmpeg.
Do you have an idea how can we get the same outcome with ffmpeg or 384 kb/s files with streamripper ?
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/tutorialconsole.php
Unrelated, here is one trick if you prefer .flv file for Sky News.
youtube-dl doesn't give you that option, so here it is.
youtube-dl.exe -f 94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOacA3RYrXk -o - | ffmpeg.exe -i pipe:0 -c:v copy -c:a aac c:\sky.flv