I have 50 albums in various MP3 biterates that I want to convert to 96bps so that I can store on an SD card for my Palm.

These albums were ripped from my own CDs and at the moment are on my wife's Ipod. So I will take a copy of her library and convert that.

Can anyone please recommend a freeware/shareware program that can accomplish this task?

CDex is a freeware CD ripper but it also has an option to re-encode compressed audio files.

Click "Convert" then "Re-encode Compressed Audio Files".

You'll have to change some settings first like the output bitrate. You'll find this in the "Options / Settings / Encoder" area. You can also select the output directory in the "Filenames" tab.

Another product that I would highly recommend (mainly because it's the one that I use) is MP3 To Wave Converter PLUS!.

Unlike other programs, MP3 To Wave Converter PLUS! is always ready to use as it is available via Windows explorer 'right-click' context menu. You can convert a single file or, like all Windows files and folders, you can batch convert.

Select a single file, 'Select All' or select a group of files by holding down the 'Ctrl' button and clicking the files that you want to convert. When the files you want to convert are all highlighted, simply right-click one of them and click 'Convert To' from the context menu.

As well as being able to convert MP3 to WAV and WMA you can also convert MP3 back to MP3 at different bitrates (e.g. convert 1.mp3 @ 192kbps to 1.mp3 @ 128kbps).