Lame 3.99.5 outputs smaller files than 3.97 ? Options

[gourdo]

I ripped most of my CD collection about six years ago with LAME 3.97b with the V2 preset. I recently had a hard drive crash and had to re-rip pretty much everything. Fortunately, i still had all the physical discs stored and in excellent condition, so I lucked out this time. I downloaded the latest version of LAME 3.99.5 to re-rip.

As it turns out, a few albums of the original 3.97 rips survived the crash (saved to an external SD card), so I was able to compare a number of tracks. I noticed that pretty much every newly ripped song had a lower bitrate (5-10kpbs) and file size than the ones ripped with 3.97. Is this to be expected due to the improvements in compression techniques made to LAME over the past several years? I suppose I would have expected the V2 preset to hover around the same average bitrate as the encoder improves, and that it would use the extra headroom to improve quality in difficult passages...

[axemred]

I recently re-ripped a CD (can't remember which one now. I think it was an Ozzy album) to test a new EAC install, and I setup 3.99.5 to encode it with V2. I had originally encoded it years ago with 3.90.3 aps. It's amazing how much smaller the files are. Some are 30kbps smaller. At first I thought I did something wrong, but after some reading, it looks like everything is ok. I didn't do any ABXing, but I ripped a few more albums and listened and didn't notice any artifacts. LAME has come a long way.