Sox + MP3: libsox-fmt-mp3 not working
Ult decided to just use wavs. Months later (aka now) requirements changed and in order to support IE I had to get mp3 support up and running. All of the above issues still applied.
Ended up using lame.
system "lame -b 32 --resample 8 -a #{Rails.root.join("tmp",@filename)} #{Rails.root.join("tmp",@output_file_name)}"