I'm new here and I've been looking around for a few hours now but can't find the answer to this.

I have been encoding my MP3s with LAME 3.90.3 Modified (-alt preset standard) for a while now. I'm thinking about upgrading to LAME 3.97 (-V2 --vbr-new) to try and maintain the same quality but decrease the filesizes.


Just in general, is LAME 3.97 (-V2 --vbr-new) about the same quality as LAME 3.90.3 Modified (-alt preset standard)? Or is it better? I did a short listening test of my own and can't really tell the difference. I even opened up the files in Cool Edit Pro spectral view and can't tell that much of a difference.

The answer is in the two pinned topics in this same forum.

The reason why it took so long for the ha-recommended version to be upgraded, was because veterans on this community demanded that for the recommended version to change, the new version has to be *significantly* better than 3.90.3

This happened with 3.96 - so yes, 3.97 should - on average - be better than 3.90.3

Slight correction: It happened with 3.97 beta and not with 3.96.

Ok cool. From now on it's LAME 3.97 (-V2 --vbr-new) for me.


Thanks for the help guys.