Can anyone just tell me what the absolute best VBR setting is for LAME, like archival quality, but still keeping size in mind just a little bit? Is it --alt-preset extreme?

--alt-preset extreme -Z

"-Z" takes care about noise shaping, which is a little bit less perfect than it should. It forces LAME to switch from one to another routine. In this case - from worse to better noise shaping.

I would personally still recommend just using --alt-preset standard.

The difference between it and --alt-preset extreme is mostly theoretical. On samples where --alt-preset standard fails, --alt-preset extreme will also, just it might sound a very small amount better (I'm not sure most people would notice this). The same is mostly true for -Z (please note that this switch is only a toggle, so don't try to apply the same switch somewhere else thinking it does the same thing. It may not).

You can still use -Z if you like, but you'll be increasing bitrate by sometimes as much as 30kbps, for only very few samples (probably less than 5%).

Remember that the goal behind --alt-preset standard is to sound as transparent as possible already.

I'm a bit shocked to hear you say -



Could you pleeze tell me exactly how --aps and --ape differ ? Like how theoretical and how audible is the difference ? Would people with good hearing and good equipment notice the dirrerence.... ? And.... one more thing.... is there a final size differnce.... ?

Thanks...

There is a significant final size difference; in my experience, --ape tends to be 20-25% bigger than --aps (usually works out to around a 40-50 kbps difference). As for how they differ, --ape has a higher lowpass and a bunch of other code-level tweaks I don't know about (I believe it has some more aggressive switching to short blocks to try to avoid pre-echo, but don't quote me on that). As for how audible the difference is, it's not audible at all to me. =] But some people can hear the difference on a few problem clips, which were what --ape was primarily designed to improve.

imo, i've tried -Z with alt preset and the sound have artifacts.
is this possible?

You say you hear artifacts, and then ask whether it's possible??

Of course anything is possible... I can't say whether you hear artifacts or not.. just try with double blind test yourself, it's that easy.

From what I've read, -Z in --alt-preset standard will result in a "lowpass-like situation" at 16kHz. Seeing as it's not a perfect lowpass, I suppose artifacting is very much a possible result.

I think you are mistaking -Z with -Y, which does more what you say.

I was not sure at 100% of the artifacts caused by -Z, so I have avoided of do an affirmation...