I am sure that I read the answer to this question on a thread somewhere, but for the life of me cannot find it now, so sorry but here goes again.
Which gives the best quality when using Lame:

--alt-preset standard (VBR)
--alt-preset 192 (ABR)
or
--alt-preset cbr192 (CBR)

Thanks for any help

The first is best.

--alt-preset standard will give you the highest quality results. 192 ABR will be of higher quality than 192 CBR. Average bitrate is like telling the encoder to do the best it can at a certain bitrate. ABR doesn't restrict the bitrate to exactly 192 but instead will allow the encoder to choose bitrates above and below that to encode the music. This will result in a higher quality file as higher bitrates can be used for parts of the music that need it and lower bitrates can be useed for the parts in the music that are less complex.

FAQ is the thread --- you don't even have to do a search

Yes, I looked there, but I couldn't find an answer to this specific question.
If am wrong then I apologise for wasting peoples times, and maybe you can point me to the exact area.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=203&

This post was in my mind.

edit: ok, indybrett was faster

Please accept my sincere apolgogise for time wasting. I guess that will teach me to skim read