1) Is transcoding FLAC/APE to MP3 as good as encoding directly from the CD -> WAV -> MP3?

2) Is there a setting in LAME where I can specify the max/minimum kbit/s? I'd like to encode my files in the 192-320kbps range. Is this possible, or do I have to use the "extreme" preset?

1. Yes. As long as the source file is lossless then transcoding from a lossless file to a lossy would be the same thing as ripping a CD to that lossy format.

2. You can but it is not recomended. The presets in Lame are ment to give you the highest quality, depending on the quality level you want. So -V 5 will give you "near CD quality." Does this mean that the bitrates will always be below 128kbps? No. It just means that -V 5 will give you the same quality. Just like -V 0. The bitrates may not always be above 192kbps but it will give you the same quality for each track. Believe it or not but not every frame of every track needs to be encoded at 192kbps or above. However, you can type this command in to get what you want (based on a abr of 256kbps):
--abr 256 -b 192

This command means that your resulting mp3's will have a average bitrate of 256kbps and the bitrate will not go below 192kbps.

Still, I recomend just sticking with -V 0 --vbr-new if you want high bitrate VBR music.

Edit:

In bringing up the TOS, I realize that my Lame command may not be 100% accurate. Unfortunately I am at work so I can not check the validity of --abr 256 -b 192 but I will do so when I get back home in 3 hours.

Also, take a look at TOS #6.

congrats on the worst thread title in recent memory


later

Moderation: Title amended. monolithic, please take note.

It's not recommended to enforce a minimum bitrate, it just wastes bits and doesn't really improve quality.

Sorry for the bad title, I was in a rush to post it before rushing off to work

Just another question, is there a software that will do LAME 2pass VBR encoding (like Xvid?)

Not that I'm aware of.

In video encoding, 2-pass encoding is only used to enforce an arbitrary size limit on the encoded file. The first pass analyzes the video contents and the second pass adapts encoder parameters to achieve the given file size. 2-pass encoding is not about achieving a higher quality of the encoded file!

So the question is: Why would you like to do 2-pass encoding for mp3 audio files? (are there really any strict size limits on your mp3 files?)

2-pass (or more) encoding CAN give higher quality (for video), by allowing it to figure out which scenes/areas need more or less bitrate for optimal quality. It is not necessarily for keeping at a target bitrate.

100% correct. A 2-pass encoded video file will definately have higher quality than a single pass encoded video yet the 2-pass video will have a slightly smaller file size (kinda like comparing CBR and VBR encoded audio files). A 2-pass system for video will allow it to allocate more bits for certain frames of a movie than a 1-pass system. For example, I encoded a movie at the 1.5Mbps mpeg-4 AVC (h.264) bitrate and format. I encoded a it via a 1-pass and 2-pass procedure. For certain scenese, the 2-pass video would actually go up to a 2.5Mbps bitrate while the 1-pass remained at 1.7Mbps (as 1-pass can be quasi VBR). For other scenes that were extremely dark, the 2-pass video went all the way down to 350 kbps while the 1-pass only went down to 1.3Mbps. But this really all belongs in the video sections here.

Now, back to the topic.

No, a 2-pass encoding scheme for Lame isn't available as it would be kinda of useless as the Lame mp3 encoder already analysis each frame of a song and gives it a bitrate appropriate to the quality setting. 2-pass systems aren't necessary for audio encoding.

I do recall people asking about this before, the only 2-pass thing that could've been done for LAME was to go through and re-optimize the huffman codes, which would bring a drop of maybe a few (single-digit) kbps...

No, IMO this is not correct.
(I only know the details when it comes to the XVID codec, but I assume that other codecs are similar in this respect.)

XVID has 3 different encoding modes:
1. single pass: target bitrate (constant bitrate, similar to LAME's CBR mode)
2. single pass: target quantizer (constant quality, similar to LAME's VBR mode)
3. two-pass: target size or target bitrate (constant quality with additional size/bitrate limit)

Two-pass mode is in some way similar to LAME's ABR mode: the encoder tries to achieve the best quality while enforcing the bitrate limit given by the user. (yes, I know that LAME's ABR mode does a single pass only)

@ kornchild2002
You compared encoding modes 1 (single pass: target bitrate) and 3 (two-pass: target bitrate). I know that two-pass mode will give a higher quality result than single pass CBR mode. But mode 2 (single pass: target quantizer) would have achieved this, too.



No, LAME can optimize the Huffman codes in a single pass, because it can to an exhaustive search on the entire set of Huffman tables that are specified in the MPEG standard.
(you might have confused this with Ogg Vorbis, which could benefit from a second "Huffman optimizing" pass)

edit: added emphasis