Any idea what the the heck this is about?

This works:
a52dec -o wavdolby -a audio.ac3 >tmp.wav
cat tmp.wav | mp2enc -o audio.mp2 -b 224 -r 44100

This does not:
a52dec -o wavdolby -a audio.ac3 | mp2enc -o audio.mp2 -b 224 -r 44100

**ERROR: [mp2enc] failure reading WAV file

Addendum:
`a52dec -o wavdolby -a audio.ac3` | `mp2enc -o audio.mp2 -b 224 -r 44100`

With back ticks added it works (at least on the command line so far)... go figure??

Addendum2:

After attempting this again yesterday even the back ticks don't help anymore? It does not seem to matter what shell I'm in either. At least there is a workaround.

Attention Afropic and FFmpegX authors ( and probably others), I assume this affects your efforts.