I am having issues with all LAME dll versions greater than 3.88

Here's the problem .. it appears that there is a problem with "Dual Stereo" Quality on LAME dll versions greater than 3.88

If I use the 3.88 DLL to make an mp3 in "Dual Stereo" It sounds great.

If I use any other version later than 3.88 (3.90.2 for example) then the audio file is distorted in the right channel and somewhat choppy. Can anyone help with some information here .. the mp3 is fine is encoded with "Stereo" Quality but not with "Dual Stereo"

I assume that you mean "Dual Mono" when you are saying "Dual Stereo".

You do not want to use this for encoding your MP3's (at least not for quality purposes). First of all, you should really be using joint stereo (using one of the --alt-presets, joint stereo will provide the best quality), but aside from that, you'd want normal stereo and not dual mono. Dual mono is meant for certain things like some audiobooks where the content is completely different and uncorrelated in either channel. This wastes bits on normal music though. With Normal stereo, if the encoder decides that one channel only needs a certain amount of bits to be encoded properly, the other channel can use the remaining bits. With dual mono, you don't get this as the bits are always split equally amongst the two channels.

Having said that, I'm not certain why the file would come out sounding distorted in this way when using dual mono.

Lame DOES NOT support dual channel mode!!!

The 4 options in AudioGrabber for LameEnc DLL are in order (and I assumed in order of quality)..

"Mono", "Joint Stereo", "Stereo", "Dual Stereo"

Which should I be using for the bst results???

also which VBR Method is the best ???

thanks

just use lame.exe and --alt-preset standard

Joint Stereo

I am interested in best sound quality not concerned too much with bit wastage..

So Joint Stereo is a better quality than Stereo ??

I make mp3 CD's for my car sound system which has an MP3 player in it and very high quality sound (over $5k system) so it needs to sound as good as possible.

If you read the LAME FAQs on this website, you will see that it is unwise to use custom command-line options with LAME. For the best quality (transparent, or indistinguishable from the source CD) use LAME 3.90.3 with --alt-preset standard and let it worry about which VBR method, stereo method etc. to use.

For your curiosity though, --alt-preset standard uses joint-stereo and the old vbr mode.

Joint-stereo saves space by essentially compressing the channels together some of the time. LAME is super smart at this - you won't be able to tell at all. As a result it frees up bits to be better allocated elsewhere.

Thanks Jebus

I prefer using the DLL to the exe

I'll be using Joint Stereo from now on.

well if you'll be ok with not having the best quality possible....

whats the problem with using an external encoder ?

Why would the dll be more inferior to the .exe ?

RTFM

there is a FM ?

Where's TFM ??

You can't use the alt-presets with the dll. I think there is a modified dll, maybe in the rarewares section, that lets you access some of the alt-presets. But it seems much easier to use the exe, and then you gett full access to all presets.

Don't know anything about audiograbber and the lame exe but if you are interested in quality then I suggest a look at EAC instead. Slow but high quality.

Hey Sidewindr; I use AudioGrabber also, and have come to trust what I read
from the folks on this board, so I thought I'ld lay this out for you step-by-step.
Please don't take this as me talking "down" to you. I don't mean it that way.
But perhaps it'll help someone else trying to configure AudioGrabber with Lame.

Start, (if you haven't already), by going to the General - (MP3) forum.
Click on the "sticky" thread called: List of recommended LAME compiles
Click on Download LAME 3.90.3 and save this somewhere where you
can find it again.

Unzip it to its own folder, then move it over as a sub-folder of AudioGrabber.
(Actually, that last step isn't absolutely necessary, it just makes everything neat.)

Start AudioGrabber, click on the MP3 icon on the toolbar.
Select External Encoder, browse to wherever you just installed Lame.exe.
Under the Predefined arguments box, select User Defined.
In the Arguments box, type "%s %d --alt-preset standard" (no quotes)

Click on OK and your pretty much ready to go!

That'll get you started, and its pretty simple after that to change "standard"
to "insane", or whatever if you want.

(I use "insane" myself, with only an Alpine head unit going into a Nakamichi amp.)

Hope this helps someone, Dex

Edit: One last thought, I discovered that by using the external encoder, its normal
for AudioGrabber to think the process is over while Lame is still chewing on some bits
in a DOS window. Give it a moment to finish before you start something else.
(The DOS window should be apparent, unless your doing something else
in the foreground.)

Edit2: After some experimentation, went back to using "standard". Nothing seemed
to be gained by using insane.

Thanks for the info

I also have an Alpine Head Unit .. CDA-7878R and its an awesome head unit.

Nice.

...

Now lemme just plug it again, now..

For the highest quality: --alt-preset standard

Yeah use lame.exe you won't be dissapointed with that! lame_enc.dll sucks anyway and usually has poor performance... at least thats how I remember it back in the CDex days

OK someone please explain.

I see this alot HERE, yet on other MP3 info sites i read that the "Highest Quality" is "INSANE" or 320 constant.

I am not concerned with space, i am concerned with best possible sound.

I have a high end home theater system and routinely swap mp3 cd's from truck to home. Its just convenient to store my redbooks away and listen to mp3's

Yes, i also listen to SACD and DVD-A but the titles are limited.

So, is the "standard" setting better than "insane" or am i being mislead?

Thank you.

It all depends on what you expect from "a better preset."

Do you want superb quality, at reasonable file sizes? Then use --alt-preset standard. If you're satisified, try something like --alt-preset 160 and see if you find that nice. The idea is to go for something lower, until you reach your sweet spot. If you find --alt-preset standard awful, you can try something else, like --alt-preset extreme, although I think that would be unlikely.

Do you want the highest quality, no matter what the file size? Then use either --alt-preset insane or --alt-preset cbr 320. They are one and the same.

You and I may have same problem.
I've recently bought Samsung SM-85 MP3/CD player, and many of my MP3 files are not compatibile with the player. While playing those songs I can hear occasional sound errors (very short, high pitch sound). I've also noticed that this happens with files encoded with LAME >=3.88.beta.
Further analysys showed that my player has problem playing MP3 frames that have mixed short and long blocks.
LAME since 3.88.b allows short/long block differing in frames, only in Stereo mode. Encoding files in Joint Stereo doesn't produce frames with mixed short/long blocks.

I'll try to make a program using LAME source code, that will reencode only those frames that my player has problem playing (to minimize quality loss).
I don't know how long it will take, but I'll put a page on the Net and post a topic here.

There's an option to disable short blocks (note that it will decrease quality):
--noshort
This will disable short blocks, reducing quality.

You might want to try:
--strictly-enforce-ISO
This will force lame to not produce short block in left channel while there's a long block in right
and limit bit reservoir.

If short blocks are causing the problem, then the player is broken,
as it can't read standard MP3 files.

Once more, let us emphasize - Use joint stereo.

Thank you and good night.

Here's the tool as I promised:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/showtopic/16049

i use RazorLame with LAME 3.90.3 and --alt-preset insane