Distortion on audio after exporting from audition to MP3

[Catherine23835264p17x]

I have been recording podcasts using MS Teams. I create a new multitrack session in Audition using a sample rate of 16000Hz as this matches Audio sample rate of the MS Teams video. 32 Bit Depth and stereo sound.

The video is in an MP4 format and I bring this file straight into audition. Once I have finished editing the audio file, which sounds good in audition, I export it to MP3. When I listen using QuickTime player, or within the Teams player, the sounds has a slight distortion (muffly/'shhh' noise at the end of the words, which wasn't there when listening through in Audition. Is there a solution to this? 

Thanks in advance!

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Whatever you do, it's not going to be that good if it's sampled at 16k - that will limit the top of the audio to 8kHz. On top of that, MP4 is a compressed format, and then you're converting it to another, different, compressed format. What MP3 settings are you using?

[Catherine23835264p17x]

Thanks for the quick response SteveG 🙂 Good to know I will basically need to find a better way to record instead of through teams, if I want it to be better quality. The below are the export settings I am using (this one, the video was actually a sample rate of 48khz. what is strange is that now when I export this file (a different recording) there is a background hiss constantly throughout the recording, which didn't happen before, so I'm not sure what I have changed, but it's the first time it's happened.  

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

That's easy - it's an 8 bit export, which limits the dynamic range, and hence the noise floor, to just over 48dB. That's pretty poor! As in about the same as a bad cassette recorder...