This is all with EAC 0.95pb4 and LAME 3.96.1.

Normally, when I rip CDs for listening on my computer, I use --alt-preset standard (though, it seems the alt isn't needed any longer) and I'm generally pretty happy. But now I'm looking to get some low-bitrate rips for my car's CD-MP3 player. It's an Elantra with factory speakers and an aftermarket Pioneer mid-range head unit, so I'm betting I can go pretty low with the bitrate before noticing it while driving.

A while back, I just did a CBR encoding at 128kbps, and another with those settings and resampled to 32kHz (at the time, I read something saying this was a good idea, but now I know better). And the files are pretty acceptable through my car stereo. But now, after reading a lot here, I'm trying it again. This time with ABR. But not without issues.

I've done several rips of two albums (The Beatles - Rubber Soul and The Smashing Pumpkins - Machina). I've tried --preset 128 (with and without -Y), -V5, -V6 and --preset cbr 128 (for reference). In doing this, all of the ABR methods resulted in a very similar total file size (< 1MB difference per fun album), whereas the CBR method had a total file size about 15-20% smaller. A little odd, I thought, as the ABR method should average out to the same bitrate over a number of songs.

I think the problem is due to EAC. In the Compression Options, under the External Compression tab, there is the "Bit Rate" option. The default is 160. I've never touched it, as I assumed the command line options directly above it would negate its effect. But upon looking at my MP3s from this test in Foobar, I saw that the bitrate for all of them (other than the CBR encodings) were about 160kbps (+/- 2kbps). Well, that seemed a little odd, so I changed the drop down option in EAC to "128" (not VBR though) with the "-V5" option and ripped again. Now, these MP3s are much, much closer to the CBR files with respect to total file size of an album (the CBR files are only about 3% smaller).

So, I'm a little confused now. To make a long story short (too late, I know), what exactly does that Bit Rate option do when command line parameters are specified? And what about the Variable Bit Rate entries within that drop down box?

Thanks.

Hi, the best way I've found to make sure that EAC only uses the command line parameters that you give it (and does not add any other bit rate settings) is to change the "parameter passing scheme" to "user defined encoder" in the compression options page.

Note that you don't need to actually define anything to use this setting. It appears that when you cahnge it to "user defined" then it just passes the "additional command line options" that you give it and nothing else. That's how it works for me anyway.

I had seen this method mentioned in another thread, so I had briefly considered. My only reservation is about the ID3 tagging. Would I have to put all of the tagging options in the command line field, or would they still work from the other configuration panel?

Yes the mp3's I make this way appear to be tagged properly, all the tag fields are set correctly when I take a look in Winamp. BTW This was the part I was also unsure about, it works but I dont know why it works.

Yeah, it would be nice to see what the whole command sent to LAME is from EAC. I thought that letting the LAME command prompt window show would do it, but it doesn't. It does provide some useful information, but I'd still like to see the resulting command from EAC to LAME.

I'll give your suggestion a try, uart, and we'll see how it goes.

Also, just as an experiment, I tried putting 96kbps (the lowest value of the options) in the selection for LAME, with "-V5", and the resulting files were slightly smaller than those with 128 and -V5, and actually smaller than CBR 128 files. So my best guess here is that this value gets passed with the -b option and is used as a "target" bitrate. Not really a definitive value, but a general guide for LAME. Of course, encoding at V5 with that set at 160 oddly allows the bitrate to bloat. Whatever.