it takes about 40 seconds or so to encode one song on my computer (barton 2800+).

will the lame 4 version be faster (much?) at encoding files. cause I quite often need to convert from mpc to mp3 and it takes time....... (got a portable mp3 player)

As an aside, are you already using the fast presets? They saved a lot of time for me when I transcoded my mpcs, just like you do. Of course, more speed = more better, and I won't be getting a faster processor in the short term. There seems to be preliminary speed improvements with some of the earlier alphas, IIRC.

If you are talking about LAME 4.0, I can tell you that APS encodes with 5x on my Pentium II with 333 MHz vis-à-vis LAME 3.90.3 which encodes at 0.7x.

v4 will not be out before a long time.
But in the meantime, 3.93.1 is faster than 3.90, and 3.94 will be faster than 3.93.1

But the quality is not as good as in 3.90.3.

What about LAME 3.92 ? Is it as good as 3.90.3 and safe ? What you can say about this version ?

AFAIK, LAME 3.92 is a very good release, but I don't know exactly if it is as good as 3.90.2 or 3.90.3.

Based on what experience?

I don't know of any examples that prove that a regression has occured. The reason that 3.90.3 is still recommended is that it is more tested, not that it has (a proven) better quality. That 3.93.1 might have regressed is just a wild guess.

Please tell why you think that 3.91.1 has worse quality. And obey the hydrogenaudio rules on this topic!

EDIT (a typo): Digga was right, edited 3.91.3 to 3.93.1

you mean 3.93.1, right?

There were real and serious problems with Lame 3.93. Gabriel did investigation, called for help, and problems were corrected. It was one year ago. But 3.93.1 still paying for this mistake...

As far as I know, Dibrom optimized the alt-presets for 3.90.3 a bit and 3.90.3 has been released after 3.93.1.

I didn't know that Dibrom worked on --alt-preset the last two years...
Now, if you're talking about -Z switch, it'd just an adding, and have nothing to do with further tuning.

Umm... OK, my bad.

I wonder, why CDex ripper has always used LAME version 3.92 instead of 3.90.3, in wich is considered the most recommended encoder.

Because of the CDex versions, I always thought that 3.92 was the very best version encoder.

Why would 3.93 be worse than its predecessors ?

I mean everytime a newer version of a product is released they try to make it better. Now if 3.92 is better than 3.93 and ofcourse the developers of LAME would know that, why would they bother taking out 3.93 ?

Dont be mean to me guys, this is my first post

3.93.1 is a fine release... compared to previous ones it compiles properly using GCC version 3, had some bugs fixed and a small bit of tuning done. It is NOT, however, tuned for the --alt-presets anymore because they were designed for 3.90.3. So if you plan to use the --alt-presets (and I highly recommend you do), use 3.90.3. 3.94 will in theory be much nicer as they are once again asking for listening tests.

Well, I'm now using the --alt-presets with Lame 3.92. Is it fine to use (like with 3.90.3) ?

Thanks !!

To quote Amano :

May 12 2003

now john33 has compiled a 3.90.3 release with the -Z switch integrated into APS and APE. this should now be the release to recommend most.

QUOTE
lame 3.90.3 2003-05-09

includes lame.exe, lame_enc.dll (--alt-preset standard & extreme with -Z option) - ICL4.5 compile using Dibrom's switches

Download (312Kb) - Sources (20Kb)


get it here at rarewares:
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/files/l...lame-3.90.3.zip


EDIT: to understand the reasons that led to the integration of the -Z switch, check this thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....6&t=7783&st=25&


IMHO I spend a lot more time listening to the tunes than I do encoding them. As a former quality test guy, I appreciate that good intentions can be lost when new work is not thoroughly verified. It would be nice if someone with a lot of time and initiative gave the current ( 3.93.1 ?) conduct a thorough test. I for one got bitten by some post 3.90.x releases and didn't like needing to reencode.

It would be nice to see the hard work that has been done on newer versions getting the confidence and recognition it probably deserves.

I read somewhere that besides LAME 3.XX and LAME 4.0 one more version of LAME is under development. Huh? Is it true?

don't you think that if someone (btw, why only one? that data could hardly be generalized... though I don't think that ATM a lot of ppl would take part in a lame vs lame test, cause it's prob. too difficult) would test the recomended lame version 3.90.3 against something else, then the upcoming 3.94 would be of much more intersest?

I use RazorLame as the front-end so i dont go through the alt-preset settings manually.

I encode at 320 STEREO. And in the OPTIMIZATION, I set it at "Quality".

Isnt it the same as alt-preset insane settings ?

No. The last time I checked, Razorlame didn't support the alt-presets, and I suspect that it never will. If you want to use them you will have to specify them manually.

Simply setting the bitrate to 320kbps and selecting "quality" is not the same thing at all.

Try EasyLAME. Latest RazorLAME and recommended LAME in one package, pre-configured with the alt-presets.

There is no good reason to use 3.92. It SHOULD work okay (I would use the -Z option though because 3.92 doesn't do it by default)... but 3.90.3 will be AT LEAST as good if not better, so why not just use that?

On "http://lame.sourceforge.net/" it says about LAME 3.93.1 ... quote :

"Many improvements in quality in speed."

Now why are most people saying to use any older version then when the product developers themselves are talking about "improvements in quality in speed".

from my own testing lame 4.0 (alpha 4 or something) encoded MUCH faster than 3.90.3.. and i'm still on an P2 450mhz.. but as of current i dont know (cuz i dont follow this kind of stuff) i dont know how 4.0 compares in quality to 3.90.3 .. so i dont use 4.0 ..

Is lame 3.94 alpha 16 more fast than lame 3.93.1? 3.93.1 is a bit faster than previus releases, in a potent computer the difference is ridiculous but I notice it in my old PII 350

NO improvements were made to the alt-presets though! And in fact, the aformentioned "improvements" may have screwed up the way the alt-presets were tuned in the first place!

"may have screwed"

Is that an assumption ?

How do u know that no improvements were made to the alt-presets ?

As I know. Simply because 3.90.3 is not the same branch as 3.93.1.

But according to my roughly test. 3.93.1 sound very good and sound correct without any problem. There's meaningless to keep arguing which one is better because they're not strickly compared to each other seriously, their quality is so close that no need to carry out extra work.

LAME 4.xx should be a huge speed up and many code modification. Maybe more than 50% re-write so don't expect will come out within next 6 month.