I'm using LAME 3.90.3 for encoding 256 kbit and 320kbit mp3s (joint stereo mode). I dont prefer VBR very much and want to get very high quality mp3s.
May I please ask if any of newer versions of LAME provides better quality output than 3.90.3 in CBR JS 256 or 320kbit ? It may be a silly question but Ive read that not every newer version of LAME gives better quality in every encoding mode/bitrate.
Well maybe there is a time to change my opinion about VBR too. I simply dont like VBR for not very precise time counting on some players, for a bit weaker error proof (drops) and also for worse ability to cut VBR mp3s.
So please if anyone can suggest me the better LAME than 3.90.3 for CBR 256 and 320kbit and better LAME for VBR 128~320kbit, if any.
Thank you.

I think you'll find at that bitrate very little improvement as differences at that bitrate are near on impossible to spot, and mostly overkill.

You say you want 'high quality' mp3s. Have you actually ABX'd them and tried at a lower bitrate? I think you'll be surprised.

What have you ABXed at 256k CBR w. 3.90.3? Any real songs or just problem samples?

Im sorry but Im a bit newbie about LAME settings, did you mean ABR (average bitrate)? Ok, going to try these options -b 256 -m j -h --abr 200 -B 320. Do I risk any incompatibilty on older MP3 players if I use this ABR?

Hang on ric-CZ. Lame v3.90.3 was recommended because of the tuned --alt-presets, but you're not using those.

So why not just use the latest recommended lame version with whichever bitrate you require (e.g. 320kbps CBR)?

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....7516#entry74068

Cheers,
David.

He didn't mean ABR; he asked if you could tell, by means of an ABX test, that later versions than 3.90.3 had lower quality - which they almost certainly won't.

As David said, you're just as well to use the latest recommended version, which is now 3.97, with your chosen CBR bitrate.

I do, though, have a few criticisms of your proposed commandline:



1. How can you have an ABR of 200 when you request a minimum bitrate of 256 and a maximum of 320?
2. Joint stereo is used by default.
3. -h, and other "higher quality" settings, are rarely likely to be necessary or produce noticeable differences in sound quality.

Only broken players display incorrect time. Most modern players have no such issues.
VBR doesn't have any effect on errors, it won't really make it better or worse. Damaged files are something you should try to avoid, in any case.

And only broken tools have a problem with cutting VBR MP3s. There's several good tools on this forum that have no issues with VBR MP3s.

You may experience bad timing if the mp3's are broken. Fix them with foobar or any other standalone VBR header fixer. If your problem persist on older players, you could try to fix the bitrate to the lowest possible CBR with mp3repacker.

I however, think you should take a look on the latest lame 3.97 with --preset fast extreme. fast is actually a bit confusing, since many (including me) relates fast to poor quality, but fast activates the new improved (quality wise) vbr-encoder, and extreme is quality 0, which aims for the best possible quality using vbr, instead of a given bitrate.

I was using almost the exact same settings as you until I realised that I was better off with these

This link is for the recommended compile, and includes recommended settings. Very smart people have created this. Based on your statement that you are a newbie, I suggest you follow the recommendations.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame_Compiles

thank you very much guys!

sorry dv1989, like i wrote - im not very experienced with using ABR settings. this was just a try.

to odyssey: im going to try 3.97 with --preset fast extreme as you suggested. im glad someone has been using similar CBR settings too, so you surely know why you changed lame settings to those you recomended me.

also going to have a look at those compiles http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame_Compiles

again: Thank to all of you ppl!

Have fun!

I used Wack, EAC, Lame 3.96.1 and WavPak 4.2 to create 2 sets of my CDs.
The Lame settings were as follows
ARGUMENTS=--preset extreme --id3v2-only --pad-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --scale %x --ta "%a" --tl "%g" --tn "%n" --tt "%t" --ty "%y" --tg "%m" %s %d
The WavPack setting were as follows
ARGUMENTS=-hm -w "Artist=%a" -w "Album=%g" -w "Track=%n" -w "Title=%t" -w "Year=%y" -w "Genre=%m" %s %d

I ABXed the 2 across several albums/songs and was able to tell the difference quite easily. Is that expected. I dont really know what these settings mean. Someone else on this forum gave them to me about a year ago and I just went with his/her advice.

It is experiences like this (at the time and trouble I had ripping all my CDs) that makes me wish I had ripped the CDs uncompressed (but tagged).

You probably ABXed them easily because of the in your LAME command line, which will alter the resulting MP3s' volumes.