not sure, if this is the right sub-forum, but i just wanted to submit my findings regarding audiobook encoding with lame... after quite some time (several friggin' hours) of trials, the optimal compromise between quality and size was this setting:


lame --alt-preset medium -a -b 32 --lowpass 10 --resample 16


(lame 3.96.1, mind the --'s and -'s)

this compresses a 26cd (~33h) audiobook down to 610mb mp3 (mono). without any significantly audible loss of quality. except, of course, the usual hissing above 16khz.

ps: i use mp3 for compatibility's sake. ogg would probably yield a slightly better result (~ -15% in size).


00h

-V 9 --vbr-new -lowpass 8 -resample 16
lame 3.97b2
That should work fine.

i'll give this one a try. i haven't used --vbr-new yet. a 8khz lowpass seems too much, though.

00h

A lowpass equal to or higher than 8kHz doesn't make sense with 16kHz material, IMHO. Audio sampled at 16khz cannot carry higher-than-8kHz data anyway.

I myself use "--preset fast voice" for audio-books.

If you use --resample, then I would suggest to let Lame choose the appropriate lowpass.
Mp3 is unefficient into handling the upper sfb, and Lame is aware of it when it chooses the lowpass.

personally, i use this setting for voice where fidelity might matter..

--preset 22 --noshort --scale 1.05 -q0 -mm --resample 16 --lowpass 7.0

and like ive posted before, this one is good for absolutely lowest bitrate and still pretty decent sound.

--preset cbr 8 --noshort --scale 1.05 -q0 -mm --resample 8 --lowpass 3.3 --lowpass-width 0.4 --highpass 100

both work on 3.97b2