First of all I dont know if this is the appropriate place for this topic.

Anywayz I recently ripped a cd using EAC having installed Lame 3.98 alpha 3.

After the ripping was over using VBR settings i had opened up the files to edit the tags [Tag&Rename]. I was amazed to see that half of the mp3 files where tagged ENCODED by Xing and Half of them where Lame 3.98. Now did anyone face such error and if so what is the solution???

You have to write the LAME tag. I think it's on by default, but it depends what program you use. remove any "-t" from your command line and / or add "-T"

But this error does not actually occur when I use Lame 3.96.1 or Lame 3.97 b2.

Well not a bad idea though I will try to do the same as ya said

Is there any progress in Lame 98alpha or 97 beta? because i think it's been 5 months (half year) since beta became recommended, is it going to go final any soon?
if 98 branch is not going much further, then is there any chance of importing new implementation of VBR system into 3.97 before it goes final?

Don't forget:http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=28125

Daily snapshots of 3.98a3 http://lame.bakerweb.biz/

Is there any sence to use these versions even for test?

I use those for daily encoding. I don't mind the bleeding edge

then what are less or more recomended setings for vbr 128 kbit/s 3.98a3?
3.98a3 vbr 5 gives 160 kbit/s.

I used -V5 --vbr-new --athaa-sensitivity 1 with 2000 files, and bitrate is still ~130 kbps.
alpha 3 on rarewares tends to add ~10 kbps compared to alpha 2; it corrects artefacts clearly audible on some situation. I'm using a variant of this encoder which is more efficient (~same bitrate as alpha 2 and artefact corrected as well).

Duration of CD 47:53

3.97b2 -V5 --vbr-new 47.741.828 bytes 129,8 kbits/s
3.98a3 (rarewares 2006-02-19) -V5 --vbr-new 53.615.476 bytes 145,8 kbits/s
3.98a3 (rarewares 2006-02-19) -V5 --vbr-new --athaa-sensitivity 1 53.953.106 bytes 146,71 kbits/s

Does 3.97b2 version has --athaa-sensitivity 1?