Last week I spent ages encoded my cd collection to mp3 (about 150 cds). I did a little reading and came across the r3mix preset and thought that was the best option. After i've encoded and backed up everything i come across this alt-preset standard which is supposed to be better :mad:

Is there really much differance between the two? I just encoded a jeff buckley song with the aps and I can't really hear much differance and its nearly one meg bigger. It seems to be using a slightly higher bitrate through out the track, i guess my hearing isnt that good... But saying that im not using expensive equipment so thats probably why (kenwood hifi, was good for its time but its about 5 years old now)
What do you guys think?
Thanks

Heh... These kind of wouldn't happen if the admin of r3mix.net would update his page and concede that --r3mix is not only does not offer adequate quality to many people, but also that it is outdated and obsolete.

Instead he's just decided to disappear from the scene for good and leave his site in disrepair... with all it's misinformation left online. This is really pretty unfortunate to people who are new to LAME who aren't aware of this situation.



Yes. The difference ranges to being subtle on easy to encode tracks, to being huge on difficult to encode tracks. On average, there is a sufficient difference to warrent using --alt-preset standard.

Of course... maybe you're asking the wrong guy, since I developed it specifically because --r3mix was inadquate and failed under so many circumstances.



Equipment usually doesn't have that much to do with hearing artifacts, despite what many people seem to think. It's more of a matter of either training (getting used to the kinds of unique sounds these artifacts usually create) or natural ability.



Well... if --r3mix is good enough for you, and you're not too anal about quality (like a very large percentage of the people around here ), then maybe it's not worth a reencode. I'd do it if it was me though. And certainly I'd use --aps for future encodes

But the guy is right I can clearly hear the differences between --r3mix and --aps. Not to say that r3mix is bad, but it depends on your demands for quality if you decide to reencode in the end.

cheers for the help, i think ill try a little blind test with a few samples. You're right, it's a shame that r3mix.net haven't updated their page about the aps setting or anything. I came across it and did a little reading and thought it must of been the best option...