Hi,
I just used the current Lame 3.98b4 .exe compile from rarewares (with the date 2007-7-24) for encoding via dbpoweramp (external commandline encoder option) and was surprised by the high bitrates it gave for -V2. But hell, when I listened to the files, I nearly blew my headphones (and ears) out, the "music" was just noise and screeching at full volume! I went back to the older b4 from (I think) 2007-7-3 (no longer available at rarewares), and it was back to normal, like with all previous version I used with dbpoweramp.
So here's the question: Is something broken with the current compile that may garble the input in certain cases (e.g. with dbpoweramp)?

I downloaded it today and used it with the latest version of EAC and had no problems.

Yeah, I am sure it works in most cases, otherwise more people would have complained by now. I am no expert on these technicalities, but there are several ways to pipe input to the lame.exe, right? Maybe the one dbpoweramp uses is affected. Maybe it is also a fault of dbpoweramp, but the program worked for all previous versions of Lame I tried (3.97, 3.98b1-3 and the earlier version of 3.98b4 from 2007-7-3).
From outside, the affected MP3 files look normal and are not broken (I scanned them e.g. with Encspot), but the data consists only of irregular noise.
Edit: I have to correct myself: I just tried with another file, and there are some traces left of the original music, at least at the beginning, but they are buried under a wall of loud noise. As time progresses, it gets more and more noisy, until finally there is just noise left. Really strange...

Lately I used the 2007-7-24 version from within foobar with no problem.

I uploaded an example of a damaged file, see here.
I just re-checked, and the previous 3.98b4 from 2007-7-3 works perfect, so there must have been some changes in the 2007-7-24 version that screw things up for me.

Edit: I also checked with e.g. Multi Frontend, which also uses lame.exe, and it works OK also for the 2007-24-7 compile, so the problem probably lies with the way dbpoweramp accesses Lame. But, as I said, it works with all other Lame compiles I ever tried, so I am not sure it is to blame.

Well, I just downloaded LAME 398b4 exe from Rarewares and dBpoweramp Music Converter 12.2 together with CliEncoder Version 2. I did not notice anything wrong so far.
Does your problem happen with any input file?
Are your input files unusual in any way? Some unusual frequency?
What configuration options did you select/deselect on dB's config page?

Works very good with me...

As standalone, with foobar2000 and with DBpoweramp 12.2 via CLI plug in

Try the 3.97 release on rarewares in the same scenario and see if it makes a diff.

Then if you still have the same problem, then as robert suggested...
Does your problem happen with any input file?
Are your input files unusual in any way? Some unusual frequency?
What configuration options did you select/deselect on dB's config page?

All previous Lame compiles (even back to 3.90.3), even of 3.98b4, worked perfectly, it's just the latest 3.98b4 that is giving the problems. It happens with any files, nothing unusual about them (wav or flac input ripped from audio CDs with EAC).
Anyway, I did a complete re-install of dbpoweramp and the CLI plugin, and now also the 3.98b4 from 2007-7-24 works. Really strange. It might be that I had a slightly older version of the CLI plugin, with the latest one from dbpoweramp's home page that I downloaded today, everything works now.
Thanks for your help!

I had exactly the same problem using V2 (higher bitrates than before and the small "clicks") with foobar. I redownloaded it and for the moment, everything seems fine with an average bitrate of 203 kbps.