I've been doing some ABX testing lately and transperency for me and LAME seems to come at about 140 - 160 kbps. Basicly, I can always ABX --alt-preset 128 and can't ABX --alt-preset 140. Now, is that generally the best way to go about getting those bitrates? Also, I think my frequency range cuts off around 16hz. Maybe a bit higher, but whatever it is, I can get away with a pretty low lowpass.

Anyway, what do you recomend for this drummer who only recently started wearing ear plugs?

There is a line designed by ff123 and hans that works really well for bitrates around 128. You can check it out in the reccomended setting thread on this same forum.

I use --alt-preset standard -V3 -Y for my mp3-player, which averages 160 kbps and has 16 khz cut-off
I got it from mithrandir

--abr 128 -h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 --ns-bass -8 --scale 0.93

This is the line I reccomended earlier. I believe it should work well with higher bitrates as well.
Line will be
--abr 144 -h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 --ns-bass -8 --scale.93

You may also try --preset medium. It is only available it v 3.93.1 and higher.


With mithranders reccomendation I have tested --preset medium -b 128 and it does bring up the quality with only minor filesize penalties.

He also suggests this --alt-preset 167 --lowpass 17.5 --nsmsfix 3 -Z


I say with a portable the --abr 144 line will be your best option. Abr is better quality than vbr and cbr at lower bitrates and you will be able to fit quite a large amount of files onto your portable with it.