I would have thought scaling would be essential for any preset...

OK, so

1. 'clipping is much less likely with VBR'
2. 'mp3gain is a *much* better way to handle this'

hmm...

1. What if I do something like --alt-preset standard -B 256? (I need the B 256 because with my Sony D-CJ01 I have to choose between not including 320kbps frames or using --nores for it to play the VBR files properly... I choose B 256.)

2. How would you use mp3gain with a portable? ???

Hrmm.. I'm not sure which would be better.. You should do some testing. A good candidate might be something like fatboy, spahm, or them, since those would probably cause aps to run out of bits quickly with a 256kbps limit.



Mp3pgain modifies the mp3's themselves. No player support is necessary.

1. About the --nores or -B 256 issue: --nores seems to add bitrate to files, other things being equal. *And* I've heard that --nores decreases quality?

If VBR has a bit reservoir just like CBR, is it possible for the frames next to a frame that wants 320kbps to give it that much?

Hmm... are there any switches to customize the bit reservoir in VBR so that the encoder would make more use of it to compensate for not having 320kbps at its disposal?

2. On the mp3gain site it says it 'does not just do peak normalization.' But what if peak normalization is all I want? I don't want to dynamically compress my mp3s!

What about --strictly-enforce-iso for this Sony player?

mp3gain does [b]not do dynamic compression, ever!

Why do you need peak normalisation?

--
GCP

Well, I think I understand mp3gain more now, but the thing is it hangs every time I try to close it

As for the Sony player, http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...ight=Sony+DCJ01 people found the workarounds for it here. First mcfang found that --nores does the trick--after trying --strictly-enforce-ISO (among other things) without success. Then Chandler posted that -B256 works too. So far my experience agree with those findings. There may be other workarounds, but --strictly-enforce-ISO is not one of them

after trying every possible solution for getting vbr on the sony player i've found that you cant. i tried --nores and -b256 (i'm chandler, btw). these two commands will reduce the ammount of skipping, but wont get rid of it. also, burning your cds at a low speed (like 1x or 2x) helps as well, on good quality cdr media. this helped on my burner at least. i found the best cdr's were verbatim data life plus, and memorex black cd-r. however, none of these methods will get rid of skipping if its vbr. i found that when ripping the same files several times on different discs (same cdr media, same settings speed etc) the player would skip at differently for each cd. which means it is the player that is faulty, not the cds. after ripping and encoding my entire collection many many times i've decided that for my player and my needs --alt-preset cbr 128 is good enough. once there's ogg support on the ipod, i'm buying it and throwing out my sony player.

... that's bad news

A pity since sound quality on this Sony is superior to the SlimX IMHO--no hiss...

There is no bit reservoir in VBR. Only CBR has it.

well i realized that for portable i dont need great quality mp3s anyways... i listen to it mostly on the bus, in class, subway etc. and with the background noise and crappy speakers 128 cbr is good enough. its actually a bit of a relief that i'm not trying to get "the best possible audio" with my mp3s, its not as stressful to just settle for less.

[OT]

Hi, Joe, I'm Ricky. I guess you don't want to talk about cables, I wouldn't recommend it here.

[/OT]

This is incorrect. VBR (at least in LAME) does use the bit reservoir, just not to the degree that CBR does.

Sorry, I read this thread and thought that it was correct:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=1606

"(...) VBR modes minimize the use of the bit reservoir (...)"

As I was saying, is there some switch that would tell LAME to make more use of the bit reservoir in VBR?

LOL @ KikeG

BTW samskara, I just encoded 272MB worth of mp3s using --aps -B256, listened to more than half of it, and haven't found a single glitch. Some questions for you:

1. What was your lower bitrate limit?
2. Did you check to make sure that none of your mp3s clipped using mp3gain? I did