High,

i think it's possible to encode mp3s with bitrates higher than 320kb/s, but it isn't conform to the mp3 standard any more. does an encoder exist which can encode with bitrates higher than 320kb/s, also when mp3s aren't readable any more? lame only accepts to 320kb. i know that it's dump but i just want to know it and see

Greets

You can encode up to 640kbps in LAME with the --freeformat switch. You can't use freeformat and vbr together though (at least in LAME, I don't think there is an actual restriction on this combination anywhere though), and most players won't playback freeformat files.

Lame can encode up to 640 kbit/s using Freeformat... But it is neither compatible with any other "player" than MAD nor is the quality that impressive either... MP3 quality doesn't scale linear...

Edit: Damn, Dibrom was faster than me...

LAME creates freeformat MP3 files with bitrates that exceed 320kbps.

There is a page at http://mp3decoders.mp3-tech.org/freeformat.html that shows what decoders are available to play freeformat MP3 files.

Bitrates up to 640kbps are officially in the MP3 specifications, but the official MP3 decoder specifications state that decoding them is optional.

From the "LAME" usage documentation:

I was very suprised when I found out that my (pretty old now) hardware mp3 player yepp could play freeformat.

Unfortunately it doesn't support that high bitrates - probably due to hardware limitations. Even 320kbps is not possible, no problem with 256kbps... But it plays fine e.g. on 177 freeformat files.

probably a stupid question, but why would you want a bitrate higher than 320, CBR or VBR regardless?

hmmm, reading more threads on this forum, I'll have to take your word that you *need* 320+kbit. I can't imagine how different 128kbit (yes, that low) audio could possibly sound on better speakers, but as you can see, I'm a clueless newb.

As far as I remember, Mpxplay can play these MP3 files since one of the last updates (enabling 32-bit internal computing algorithms or something like that). But as I'm not interested in these bitrates, I did not test it and would probably go for a lossless codec anyway then...

Does it work if i use "--alt-preset standard --freeformat" parameters? Does it use over 320kbps bit stream?

You missed Dibrom's answer : --freeformat doesn't work with VBR encoding.
--alt-preset insane -b 640 --freeformat should work.

ok. Thanks. But i guess that its not very smart to use that high bit rate with that efficiency anyway...