Hi to all!
Now I use lame with -alt-preset extreme for converting all my audio cd to mp3. But a friend of mine tell me that the lame option -b 256 -m s that I previously use is better, because of less artifacts...
What is your opinion? I shoud rechange my settings?

damjang

PS: I use lame v3.92 :-)

Ignore that friend, -b 256 - m s is not better, it's worse. CBR doesn't make very much sense because you waste space, and with Stereo you'll lower the quality.

Its been so long since I used a command line.

Are you setting a max or min of 256?

And don't change the mj setting. It has been tuned as well as it can. -ms is not better than -mj with Lame. Xing is a different story.

Edit - I thought you were adding those options to the alt preset. CBR 256 -ms is not going to compete too well with preset extreme on critical samples.

Maybe your friend has a crappy hardware player that can't handle 320 kbps frames and thinks that the errors caused by this are artifacts.

APE is the way to go

-b sets the minimum bitrate, -B sets the maximum bitrate. and -F makes sure Lame doesn't go below the minimum bitrate even when encoding silence. Did I get that right?

So since the friend recommended -b, we're not talking about hardware compatibility. And even if we were, I think --nores is the switch that's needed in many cases to eliminate pops (not -B 256), at least it works that way on my roommate's Sony CDJ101.

Try to get those to play on your portable mp3 player.

Just curious as to what the difference is between extreme and fast extreme? On the portable I use it doesn't seem to matter much between the two. Of course, I use it in the car fed though the tape deck. A noisy enviroment when clipping along at 70 on the interstate. So the difference may be moot.

AFAIK, the only difference between "X" and "fast X" for the --alt-preset settings is the use of vbr-mtrh, rather than vbr-old.

Mtrh is much faster, and on some samples yields marginally better quality. But vbr-old is much more extensively tested, and will sound better on the majority of samples where you can even tell the difference.

For your purposes, the difference is moot. But if you're listening very, very carefully to a sample of applause mixed with extreme phasing effects, on a very high-quality system with a good preamp and good speakers, then you might notice it.

It depends... If you use -b [xxx] switch with VBR it sets the minimum bitrate. If you use it with CBR every frame will be [xxx]kbps. It's hard to believe he wants to use --alt-preset extreme -b 256 -m s.
-F switch: agreed.

Yes, one time I use CBR 256kbps STEREO compression... the I switch to --alt-preset extreme.
My friend have an Kenwood autoradio and I must say that is verrrrry good on playing mp3, rather much better than cd audio (I don't know why!).

damjang

PS: I think that I will still use APS extreme, but I think that in the new lame 3.94 also this APS must be tested (and not only standard ;-) )