-V2 gives way too high bitrate!?! Options

[masterridley]

I use dbpoweramp and I encode flac tracks to LAME 3.98r -V2. Usually this results in ~170 to ~220 kbps files (close to 192kbps CBR quality)

Well, not so for 2 As I Lay Dying albums that I have (think REALLY LOUD metal). When I encode those I get 230-270 kbps and of course the resulting files are quite big.

My question is: is this a bug or completely natural?
Furthermore (if it's not a bug), isn't it just better to encode in 192kbps and get a smaller file, since that's the quality I was going for anyway?

Cheers

[shadowking]

-Y is still 'experimental'. It was never supposed to be used by non-developers. This is what Dibrom once said. I think these matters are too technical and will never be fully understood.

Another way to look at it is that the original --alt-preset design was get quality 1st THEN reduce bitrate if possible. APS -Y sorta fits it but not really - you are telling it that bitrate is more important (in the context of sacrificing HF quality) . Preset medium took this even further to get a lower bitrate (sacrifice HF + more aggressive ATH)

By using V2~v0 -Y you are putting yourself into quality is important but bitrate comes 1st. That is against the original design. You are sacrificing something. So V3 is targeting the old APS -Y user by giving a level between APS (V2) and medium (V4). That is more or less what APS -Y did in the old days.