Are there any specific samples of music where people have detected differences between --alt-preset fast standard and --alt-preset standard? Or has the "fast" preset just not been tested enough to know for sure if it would cause more audible artifacts?

There are some problem samples, as I understand. I don't know where though. Fast standard tends to make files a touch smaller too.

I think (and I could be wrong) that the new vbr method has been tuned some in the newer versions. Perhaps you should try 3.93.1 on a problem sample and see if you can tell the diff. Hopefully someone will post one.

I asked this question a while back and found the following:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=211#entry1799
(This one is pretty old.)

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=596

In this second link, and the bottom, JohnV posted a link to this post, but it is broken. Could one of the admins fix it?

Better yet, can someone explain how to fix it? I've encountered a couple more posts like that and I wouldn't like to bother the admins for every little thing.

I think the best solution (for anyone who has concerns with this) is to use the standard --APS command line. Since you only encode a file once and listen to it repeatedly, why sacrifice any quality for a minor encoding speed boost?

True, but my concern was that --vbr-mtrh might give higher quality.