Im trying to decide on the best size and listening ratio. i have ripped everything from wave to ape. And now i am trying to figure out what is the best setting to for mp3s.

I think 160kps and VBR alt preset standard would do the trick. But what are your suggestions.

I know i can go to 128 for the WMA would MP3s sound better ?

Thanks

What portable do you have - what formats does it support?

I use ogg vorbis at -q2 for my iRiver H-140. Excellent size/quality ratio.

I use a micro zen i have wma and mp3 supoort only

I just tried the alt preset standard with dppoweramp and the files are a bit too large 6.3 megs a song.

BTW how good is WMA at 128?

The best setting is YOUR best setting. You must determine what setting is transparent to YOUR ears, or which offers the best compromise between space and quality. Outside opinion can't match (or just accidentaly) your sensitivity, and therefore can't be considered as THE BEST setting for mp3. Because there's no absolute BEST setting; there are only best things for someone.

your right i was just hoping for people who use the smaller portables to post what settings they use and i could go from there and determine what setting is best for me

The only pertinent thing we can do is to help you to find this ideal setting. According to your first message, wma@128 is an acceptable solution. Therefore, I'd suggest you to begin the comparison with lame 3.97a set with abr at 128 kbps or with vbr at -V 5 or -V 6 (using --vbr-new may improve quality and will increase speed) --athaa-sensitivity 1.

If you're happy with it, try to lower the bitrate, and see if quality is still acceptable...
If you're not happy with quality at this bitrate, you should stay with wma, which offers to your ears a better sounding at 128 kbps, and probably a faster encoding speed.

you da man

thanks those are great sugestions

wma vbr q25

there is no such setting. You can't combine --preset standard and 160kbps...Anyway, I have an iPod mini and encode all my songs to --preset standard (aka -V2) using LAME 3.96.1 because of lower bitrates and it is faster too.

However, --preset standard is most likely overkill for portable players, even if you use very good headphones (like me). So you should be fine with --preset medium. If you are looking for something in between the standard (-V2) and medium (-V4) setting, use -V3.

I transcode from WavPack to Ogg Vorbis aoTuV b3 -q 5 for my iRiver iHP-120. Not like I'm going to fill the thing up and the stuff is around the same size as --preset medium.

Could you please explain what does "--athaa-sensitivity" do?
Will it only help on those V settings?
How about V4?
Can it be used along with --vbr-new?

no, it shouldn't be used with -V4...just with -V5

But even with WMA at or about 128kbps, there would be a few choices. CBR 128 would give exactly that bit rate. But there are also two choices for WMA VBR. (I think both within WMA Standard, I know that WMA Professional currently plays on no portable devices.) For the one pass WMA VBR, you choose a quality setting with a number like 90, 95, etc. (I don't know which number would provide an average bit rate closest to 128 kbps, anyone know?) For the two pass WMA VBR (probably a much SLOWER encoding speed), I think you set a target average bit rate. Anyone compared these?

Quality 25????

Isn't that a VERY low bit rate for WMA VBR, a very low quality setting? What is the average bit rate you get with it?

How does it sound to you?

here!

Hi audiophile_wannabe, I recently encoded some of my stuff with the latest 3.97 alpha(7) using the settings -V3 --vbr-new. The resultant bit rate (averaged over several albums) was only 166kbps and the quality seems very good to me. If good quality vbr at about 160 is what you're aiming for then give the above a try and see what you think.

--Preset Medium should give you great quality for your portable player. The bit rates will be around 160 kbps. I've experimented with it and was satisfied with the quality. I still use Preset Standard to ensure I can't pick out any artifacts though.

I thought the 3.97 alpha was mainly for testing, even though it seems to have gotten good reviews judging from the alpha testing thread. I'm excited about 3.97 myself, but IMHO might be best to wait for the stable version and stick to 3.90.3 or 3.96.1 for the time being.