Reading this page: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/gpsycho/quality.html
I got the impression that LAME was trying to "catch up" to FhG for CBR encoding, especially at lower bitrates. Is this still the case, or has LAME surpassed FhG by now? What about MP3Pro and its much-touted improved psychoacoustic model?

Basically I suppose my question is - is LAME now the best at everything, or is FhG still state-of-the-art for CBR, especially at lower bitrates?

FhG is still better for bitrates lower than 128 kbps because it uses complete psychoacoustic tuning for each bitrate preset.

MP3Pro has no improved psychoacoustic model - it is plain vanilla FhG MP3 with bandwidth extension tool, called "SBR" - there is an ongoing discussion in MPEG to accept one of bandwidth extension tools in future revisions of MPEG standard, so it will have to become public...

While we are at it, is the bug still present in those programs that use the FHG encoder (Nero etc.): high quality actually produce worse than fast setting?


bye, Skeeve

I don't know what exactly do you mean, but FhG's slow encoder (MP3Enc like) has much more problems on certain impulse tracks (i.e. velvet.wav) than FastEnc - for that reason FhG recommends using fast encoder for bitrates greater (and maybe equal to, I'm not sure) than 128 kbps...

That bug is fixed in some programs (i.e., MMJB 6.1 or later) but not in others (Cool Edit Pro with MP3 ME plugin). If you able to hear above 13 kHz in music, encode applaud.wav at 128 to check for the bug.

ff123

for encoding mp3's at 192 kbps constant bit rate... which one should I use lame or FhG

LAME, with the switch "--alt-preset cbr 192".

for mp3's at 192 kbps constant bit rate... I should use LAME then?


thank you

Yes.

But FhG being better than LAme at bitrates under 128? Does Radium count as FhG?
'Cuz when I encoded a typical music clip using radium at 56kbps/22kHz/stereo, there was plenty of distortion. But using Lame with the commandline
--scale 0.95 --resample 22.05 -h -b 56 --nssafejoint --ns-bass -8 --nspsytune --athtype 2
Produced no distortion, at the price of a little clarity.

[edit]Never mind. But I think Intensity Stereo should be added to Lame.

Also, I find Lame to be better than FhG at 128kbps.[/edit]