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Topic: Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS! (Read 52528 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Hi,

I found a couple lame 3.91 files in my collection..... Where does that fit in in terms of quality or recommendations.... ?

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #1 –
Quote
I found a couple lame 3.91 files in my collection..... Where does that fit in in terms of quality or recommendations.... ?

If I'm not wrong, 3.91 is "official" version of 3.90.2, someone correct me if this is not true. If so, they should produce same files.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #2 –
I think that 3.90.3 should be recommended in place of 3.90.2 - contains a minor change, but still...
ruxvilti'a

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #3 –
if you look at JohnVs post carefully, it's stone old.

please don't resurrect such old postings.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #4 –
Yeah, sure....  but regardless of age, the quality of different versions will never change..... Lame 3.92 will always be better than 3.87, Lame 3.93 will never be recommended, and neither will alphas..... Now the question was - Where does 3.91 stand in it all..... ?

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #5 –
I would imagine 3.91 is or roughly the same as 3.90.2, maybe someone can elaborate. I have been using LAME v3.92 ever since it was released and will be until there is a major breakthrough in the improvement of MP3 encoding or if the future builds are tested as throughly as the 3.90.2 / 3.92 versions ( Remembers when Dibrom was releasing binaries almost every other day  ).

Laters

AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #6 –
Cool, Thanks.....

As long as there are no major flaws with 3.91, then i will keep them in my collection.... Otherwise i'm the same as you, i use 3.92 and/or 3.90.2 to encode.....

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #7 –
I'm using LAME v3.93.1 and it seems to be doing a great job except I've had a few strange endings on several mp3's and gaps when I specified no gaps in the settings. I think this is just me setting something up wrong but I'm new to this. I also tried the All2Lame frontend as I hear this does seamless, gap free recording but somhow it won't run on my XP Pro powered PC. Anyway, all this technical stuff is quite confusing for me but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

The settings I'm using for mp3 are

-b 192 -m j -h -V 0 -B 320 --lowpass 19.7

and I'm using Bluerazorlame v1.2.0 for the frontend.

I'm pleased with the results but I'm not 100% on whether these settings are 'sensible', can someone tell me if these settings are OK? Basically I'm wanting to make files that offer a good trade off between high quality and reasonable file size.
 

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #8 –
You might want to take a look at the FAQ or the other sticky threads in this forum.
But to answer your question: Your settings are somewhat sub-optimal and --nogap is considered experimental so you have to expect some screw ups.

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #9 –
Quote
The settings I'm using for mp3 are

-b 192 -m j -h -V 0 -B 320 --lowpass 19.7

can someone tell me if these settings are OK? Basically I'm wanting to make files that offer a good trade off between high quality and reasonable file size.

Basically, the best tradeoff there is between quality and filesize is --alt-preset standard.

You should really read the FAQ and sticky treads to get the whole story, but it is generally considered that you should not tinker with the settings because you would most likely end with wors results. For example, it has been widely considered that V0 offers no significant improvement over the Preset-selected V2. Your lowpass is also "questionable".

Still, you seem to be a newbie (I mean that in a good way  ) and Lord knows we all made some quesionable choices when starting to use this compressed audio stuff. So the best advice I have for you is to research a little bit more.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #10 –
Indeed, I will research a lot more.

Since I wrote that post I switched from LAME v3.93.1 & Bluerazorlame frontend to v3.90.3 &Razorlame v1.1.5.1342 and I've been playing with the presets, I also took the easy way around and installed Easylame v1.4 but basically the results using alt-preset exteme have been good. Ideally I want something inbetween extreme and standard, there's something about standard that makes me feel slightly undernourished and something about extreme that makes me bloated. What setting is 'extremely satisfied and in need of a giant fart but still there's room for pudding'?

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #11 –
Quote
What setting is 'extremely satisfied and in need of a giant fart but still there's room for pudding'?

There are no settings between standard and extreme, but you shouldn't need one either.  Show us a sample that you can ABX at standard and not extreme.  If you can I will be VERY surprized.
gentoo ~amd64 + layman | ncmpcpp/mpd | wavpack + vorbis + lame

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #12 –
Surely there is a command line that fits somewhere between standard and extreme? Whether or not there is an audible difference I have yet to find out but how would the command line read, just out of interest?

I am fairly happy with extreme, btw, but maybe I have become braiwashed that higher than standard is better.. not sure, all I can think of is random numbers and letters.. v3.903 V2 --alt-preset death -q-0 v1.1.5.1342 v1.2.0 lowpass 20.5 b196 v3.90.3 etc etc. Apart from turning into a human calculator I really love this stuff, but I am continuously looking for the perfect preset.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #13 –
Quote
something about standard that makes me feel slightly undernourished and something about extreme that makes me bloated. What setting is 'extremely satisfied and in need of a giant fart but still there's room for pudding'?

I know exactly what you are going through. You think that "standard" is another word for average and you want above average, "just in case". I thought the same thing once (when I was experimenting with other codecs). But I did what music_man_mpc suggested. Tested the setting and tried to ABX. So far I have not been able to. The Standard preset was designed to deliver in almost any sample you are likely to find. It was fine tuned to offer the closest thing to transparency that MP3 has to offer, EXTREME, IMHO does not improve quality in any manner that would justify such a radical increase in bitrate. I really do not think that bloating everyfile so I am "covered" should a problematic sample come along is justified. But that is just my opinion, based in MY reality. I listen to most of my music in my computer, through average speakers; on my iRiver CD player, with average headphones and in my car, with average speakers.  And equipment is not really an issue, even. If you find an artifact, it will be present in every thing you listen to that file with. Extreme, in my case, is unnecesary. You should try to figure out what you need in a codec, and you should also try to know your hearing, through ABX, so you can determine which codec and bitrate suits you best.
Just one piece of advice, DO NOT MESS WITH THE PRESETS. All of the major codecs supported in HA have been tested to death by people with better hearing than anybody I know. You might have "Golden Ears", indeed, but the only way to find out for sure is through ABX testing. In the meantime, the presets are pretty much all you will ever need.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #14 –
Quote
Apart from turning into a human calculator I really love this stuff, but I am continuously looking for the perfect preset.

We posted at almost the same time 

Still, I feel I must try to make a point to you.
Dibrom improved LAME by CHANGING THE CODE. The quality that Dibroms compile offers CANNOT be achieved by tinkering with switches. Nor it can be improved by the same method. Look, I know that it is kinda hard to understand, and I do not intend to be rough, but Dibrom and some other members of this board did more tests than you could imagine, in order to squeeze the best quality out of LAME MP3.
So far, there has been only one case in which quality was improved because of a switch, and it was when -Z was added. But still, the quality improve was not that significative (in fact, you could use 3.90.2, the -Z-less compile and likely never notice the difference).

You are, of course, free to test what I am telling to you (and maybe you should  ), I just think that you will be kinda dissapointed at the end.

Oh, and if you find a setting that sounds better to you, please ABX it before telling us about it. If it really improves quality and it can be ABXed, I guarantee you will be a HA celebrity overnight 
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #15 –
OK, that's very helpful stuff, thanks AtaqueEG, I might just have to investigate ABX. By the way, this is all very appreciated as a newbie to EAC & LAME, I've been using it for only around 4 days now and already I learned a lot. There's an awful lot to take in though, I think I've gone through about 10 different configurations, frontends, lame versions, not counting all the listening tests I've done for several days, and I still don't know what the overall best setup is. I guess I'll run with v3.90.3 for now as it seems the most recommended and Razorlame v1.1.5, plus --alt-preset standard.. and just MAYBE extreme for highly prized recordings. This has to end somewhere and I have to avoid getting caught up in a versionitis trap, I wanna just encode great mp3s and enjoy the music. 


Just for the record, I take it that you are using this same version setup with --alt-preset standard?   



Ahh man, here I go again..



[moderation]empty space removed[/moderation]

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #16 –
For your "highly prized recordings", if you want to feel a little better about the encoding than --alt-preset standard, just go with --alt-preset insane.  --extreme really just adds bloat without improving the quality over --standard in any noticeable way.  --insane is 320kbps so it's not really all that much more than --extreme and well worth the extra bits if you want to feel safe about the encoding being completely transparent.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #17 –
Quote
Just for the record, I take it that you are using this same version setup with --alt-preset standard?   

Indeed.
And for my highly prized recordings, I use: --alt-preset standard! 
Really, I have a lot of albums I know backwards and forwards, I have listened to them literally hundreds of times and they don't have a single note I don't know by heart.
I use -aps. Never heard a difference. Even on my headphones (Sennheiser 212 Pro, nothing fancy, but suits me just fine).
Try on a song that you have listened a lot, that you feel that you know better than the artist himself. Encode Standard, Extreme and Insane. ABX. Decide.

Just stick around in this forum, read FAQs, use Search, ask nicely and you'll learn a lot.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #18 –
*EDIT*

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #19 –
Forum bug strikes again 

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #20 –
OK, I don't know what happened there but I'll try this again:

*EDIT!*

Oh forget it, I'll wait til the board's fixed.

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #21 –
Quote
For your "highly prized recordings", if you want to feel a little better about the encoding than --alt-preset standard, just go with --alt-preset insane.  --extreme really just adds bloat without improving the quality over --standard in any noticeable way.  --insane is 320kbps so it's not really all that much more than --extreme and well worth the extra bits if you want to feel safe about the encoding being completely transparent.

I think the whole point of --alt-preset standard and --alt-preset extreme was so that they would be virtually (999 times out of a thousand) indistinguishable from 320kbit/s.  I doubt that 320kbit/s is ever transparent to someone like guruboolez or geko, and if it ever is I bet that, again 999 times out of a thousand --alt-preset standard would be too.

If you want transparency for your most highly prized encodings, use lossless:

FLAC and frontend:

http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/f.../flac-1.1.0.zip
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/flacdrop.zip

APE:

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/download.html

edits:  gramatical errors
gentoo ~amd64 + layman | ncmpcpp/mpd | wavpack + vorbis + lame

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #22 –
OK, I've been away from HA.org for awhile now.

Where did 3.95 come from?

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #23 –
Quote
I think the whole point of --alt-preset standard and --alt-preset extreme was so that they would be virtually (999 times out of a thousand) indistinguishable from 320kbit/s.  I doubt that 320kbit/s is ever transparent to someone like guruboolez or geko, and if it ever is I bet that, again 999 times out of a thousand --alt-preset standard would be too.

Don't overestimate LAMe's VBR mode.
Its CBR is still better, as it can't make so many mistakes due to psychoacoustic model.
Some samples are clearly better with --alt-preset insane. (320kbps CBR)
Anyway, most of them still aren't transparent with it.

@RyanVM: It's the latest official (not recommended yet) LAME version.
(Some major fixes went in as of 3.94 - 3.95 contains some more of them, check history)
It features automatic presets (-b 128 gives you --preset cbr 128, -V 2 --alt-preset standard etc.), new slightly better (much slower) -q 0 mode, move of -h to -q 3...

This version still needs much testing to ever possibly become recommended.
ruxvilti'a

Lame versions and alphas - READ THIS!

Reply #24 –
Glad to see that the presets are getting used whether the user wants it or not