Hi all,
I want to convert some APE music to 115kbps ABR mp3 file, and is it any suggestion to improve the quality without increasing bitrate?

greetz,

To get the best ABR quality at a given bitrate, use LAME with the command-line --preset XXX (in your case, --preset 115). This will result in better quality than just using the ABR switch by itself.

Then should I touch lowpass/highpass and etc. ?

No. --preset xxx will not benefit from further fiddling.

And then how can I config this in CDEx or can someone recommend me a good LAME frontend?

CDex doesn't support that if i remember correctly. You could either make the step to EAC(for ripping CDs), or Razorlame(just for encoding).

In case you're already familiar with foobar, then you can use fb2k to directly transcode from APE to mp3.

Also, please take a look at the mp3-section of the FAQ. It answers your question, and probably some others as well.

- Lyx

I am not so sure about that.

Somewhere I was reading that the new Lame builds have switches to adjust the block switching, similar to what Dibrom did with his presets where the short block bitrates were increased.

With 3.90 this tuning was not available yet.

I cant direct you to the correct command line switches but Gabriel might respond to a PM.

You will have to test it though to see how it affects the sound and the overall bitrate.