OK, been using CDex for quite a while and have tried finding the answer to this question in the FAQ and searches...

At the suggestion of some posts here, I backed out the standard LAME DLL engine that comes with CDex 1.51 (3.92) and replaced it with 3.90.3. I've been experimenting and the MP3s do sound better with -alt-presets standard than -R3Mix. However, the resulting bitrate seems a bit too high (wasteful) for some of the rock stuff I'm encoding - averaging over 200kbps - when I'm honestly not hearing a whole lot of difference and most of my MP3 listening is in less than idea places (the car or at work on mediocre headphones).

So I'd like to give the -Y switch (and others) a try, but there doesn't seem to be a way to use this or any of the LAME switches in CDex which aren't pre-programmed into the CDex interface... Is this true? Any work-around short of changing ripping programs (and moving to a two-stage extract/encode cycle instead of the very cool on-the-fly encoding)? If not, I suppose I would suggest that an "advanced" option would be nice so one could pass whatever options to lame_enc.dll.

Using -APS encoding is also taking a LOT longer on my P4 3Ghz - twice as long as R3Mix or even -APFS - and contrary to what some people here seem to think, time does matter when you have around 1000 CDs to encode! If I want to use -alt-presets fast standard, am I better off with LAME 3.92 or 3.90.3?

Thanks!
- mikebo

Try --alt-preset medium.
That should give you bitrates in the R3MIX range, and should sound better (you know, R3MIX is very outdated).

Also, if you don't really need MP3 (like, you are going to listen to your music on the computer rather than in a portable), I would suggest using MPC which is super-fast and it is transparent for most people at the bitrates you seem to be aiming to.

Thanks for the suggestion... but it appears there is no way to select -alt-presets medium from inside the CDex GUI. It appears that CDex users have only a very limited subset of Lame options from which to choose. This is my root issue with CDex and the one I was hoping to work around with help from this forum.

If there are no other suggestions, perhaps I'll try EAC and command line Lame.

BTW, I am married to MP3 as I carry a 40GB Archos Recorder.
- mikebo

Since not all presets are built into the CDex GUI you will need to use CDex's External Encoder option which is similar to what Exact Audio Copy uses. In Settings select the Encoder tab and select External Encoder from the Encoder pull down menu. Browse for the LAME EXE encoder. Enter this as the parameter string:
--preset medium %1 %2

If you want to do on-the-fly encoding with the External Encoder just check the On-the-fly Encoding check box and enter this as the parameter string:
--preset medium - %2

By the way, you'll need LAME 3.93.1 or higher to use preset medium. Technically the earliest version of LAME to contain preset medium is LAME 3.93 but LAME 3.93 is NOT recommended for usage so use 3.93.1 or experiment with the latest 3.95.1 stable release.

If you want more presets built into the CDex GUI go to CDex's forums and in the Feature Requests forum request that these presets be built into the GUI of CDex.

I hope this helps!