I have to rip 200 classical cd and i want to know something about the best way to do it. alt preset standard or extreme? or another setting?

I usuallly listen at classical music with my ipod and its (bad) earphones (soon i will buy sennheiser px200 headphones), so i cannot compare the two settings.

Thank you very much.

Someone told me to use "--alt-preset extreme --lowpass20". What "lowpass20" means? And is it good?

Thanks again

If you want transparent classical music, just use LAME 3.90.3 with the settings --alt-preset standard. If you want to have a warm fuzzy feeling, use --alt preset extreme.

Don´t use any other parameters like lowpass, qX, ...

The lowpass filter tells LAME where to cut the high frequencies. A lowpass of 16 KHz for example tells LAME to ignore (or encode less accurate, not sure) all frequencies above 16 KHz.

APS and APE should be enough for most people. If you feel that those settings are not good enough for your ears, try API (--alt-preset insane).

and for more info, click the link to the FAQ at the top of the page....... especially the mp3-section of it is quite informative.

Still, to repeat it again:
- if you want your music to sound just like the original, then use lame version 3.96 (or 3.90.3) with the setting "--preset standard"

- if you want to have this warm fuzzy feeling that your music is encoded at higher quality than you're able to hear(and of course at higher bitrates), then use "--preset extreme"

And if you have a very slow PC, then you can also add "fast" into both of the above presets.... like for example "--preset fast standard"

- Lyx

Thanks to all. I'll go with aps.

LAME doesn't encode at all over the lowpass.
You can clearly see that in spectral analysis.

mpc for example has a more dynamic lowpass.

Lame aps encodes some classical tracks (beethoven's piano sonata "pastorale") at 130-140kbps. is it normal?

Yes it is. Classical music usually tends to be one of the easier types of music to encode for lossy encoders (for lossless ones as well actually).

Modern rock and electronic music tends to be a lot harder to encode.

Hence the lower bitrate on classical and jazz music on vbr encodings.

Or try all of the above LAME settings, see which one works right for YOU. FOr me APS is fine, of others APE is the only way to go. Best to "test" with a piece of music you know REALLY well. Thats what I do. Most importanly , ENJOY THE MUSIC

Scott

I would recommend LAME aps and must strongly advice against ape and api.

The 3rd generation iPod have problem with the combination of Clasical music and LAME ape and api. The music is badly distorted.

I used to use MusicMatch to encode my music at 320 kbps, but after moving to iTunes I discovered that both iTunes 320 kbps and LAME api and ape badly distort classical music.

My 320 kpbs MusicMatch tracks are still OK though.

After doing A/B testing I have settled for LAME aps and never looked back.

If you are not concerned about storage requirements I would even recommend that you use EAC and rip to FLAC. It is initially more of a hassle but ensures the best quality now and in the future. As new and improved encoders are released you don't have to rerip your original CD, you can simply reconvert all your tracks automatically.