Battleangel

Mp3DirectCut v1.30

Quite often I get mp3 files that begin or end with a pop / distortion. And if those particular files are rare enough I might not want to throw them away. Besides, it’s likely to assume that the damaged files have been propagated, thus making it very tricky to find a working copy. At least this has often been the case.

That is where Mp3DirectCut comes in. It can cut out the damaged section and save the mp3 without the lossy decompression / compression routine. As far as I know the only freeware tool with this functionality.
Of course, the end result will only be tolerable as long as the distortion is at the beginning or the end of a file (in one of the silent passes) but to my experience this is very often the case. I would say that this will save me from re-downloading 40-50% of all damaged mp3 files.