I've had problems with EAC/LAME encoding tracks at 32K with silence - turns out it has to do with the "Drive Options" that are set in the "EAC" menu. Depending on your hardware, these settings control how the music is ripped from the CD. I've fixed three systems that don't rip properly by messing with these settings (all three had different settings, you'll need to see what works best on your HW).