Hi everybody. That's my first post at this forum :-)

O.k, here is my question:
Why do people prefer 192-320kbps on 0-320kbps?

Is the sound quality on 192-320kbps equals the sound quality on 0-320kbps?
Maybe is there another different that justifies the fact it's outputting larger files?

Thanks.
Your's, Nadav.

You mean VBR ?

Who prefers it ? Some release scene group or other misinformed crowds perhaps.

Putting a lower 192 k restriction means that the files will be no smaller than 192 k which kinda defeats VBR in a way. In the old days it was done when MP3 VBR was immature and lower bitrate might have caused artifacts. These days it isn't needed.

So...

would be the same as

except file-size?

so I better use -B 320?

That would give you vbr 192 ~ 320 k using vbr quality 4. The prefered method is simply to use -Vx

x = VBR quality which is 0 ~ 9 / highest ~ lowest.

lame -V3

For faster encoding lame -V3 --vbr-new

Thanks for the replay :-)
Ok, 2 questions:
1. I looked at the topic "-V n (in 3.95.1)", and that's what it is saying about V3:

What does Y and lowpass mean, and what's the range in that case?
2. What are the disadvantages of -B 320 ?

thank you.

Lowpass is specifies the highest frequency cutoff point. -Y is a smart filter that allows certain content above 16 khz to be encoded and other times it will cut off to avoid bitrate inflation with some music due to MP3 format flaws.

I don't know why -B320 would be a disadvantage other than size.

Thanks again.
About the B320:
I didn't mean -b 320 (cbr 320kbps)!
I wrote(and meant) -B 320
-B = maximum bitrate (vbr)

So.. What are the disadvantages of
The files I get of it are small but have good quality.

EDIT: -B 320 --vbr-new equals just writing --vbr-new (I've checked this out)

-B320 for vbr isn't needed as its used by default.

If you use only "--vbr-new" this also implies -V switch with default value (=4). Ie, "--vbr-new" is "-V 4 --vbr-new"

I think the OP would benefit from reading the Hydrogenaudio LAME WIKI. Manually fiddling around with command-line switches is almost guaranteed to lower the quality and/or bloat the filesize of encodings. LAME has been fine-tuned over many years to give the best possible performance with the minimum of user-input.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Thanks for the replies.
So, is -V 3 --vbr-new recommended for most users?

Thank your for all your help :-)

The only way to find out which VBR setting suits you best is to try it for yourself, ideally carrying out a blind comparison (ABX test) between the original source material and the encoding. Personal experience tells me that -V3 is always adequate for me as long as I don't go deliberately looking for flaws in the encodings.

Have a play and see what suits you best.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Which people?

As for recommendations: as Slipstreem has said, you should read the wiki and then do some tests to see what suits you. Most members would recommend VBR, simply using:


... where {X} is generally a number between 0 and 5, and --vbr-new can be left out if you choose to use the 3.98 beta rather than the stable version 3.97.

Thanks.

A lot of you asked me which people am I talking about.
I'm talking about those people who upload music torrents and say it's high-quality:
they ALWAYS put the music in 192-320kbps bitrate.

Oh, and you said that in version 3.98 you don't need to use --vbr-new.
so... that's the default? It will be applied anyway?

The reason why they list 192-302kbps is that the vast majority of -V 2 --vbr-new rips have an overall average bitrate of about 190kbps or even higher for heavier material. For example, most songs on Killswitch Engage's As Daylight Dies album come out with an overall average bitrate of 230kbps or higher. That is taking all of the frames with their bitrates and averaging them out.

So they are using that bitrate range just to show that their music is high quality. Of course, smart people know better as a high bitrate is not always indicative of high quality. I can take a 64kbps WMA file and re-encode it using Lame mp3 to 320kbps. We all know that the Lame mp3 will have a lower quality than the source 64kbps file. However, when people list bitrate, they don't always list the source or they lie about their source. Either way, it is just a ploy to get more people to download their torrent file. The -V 2/0 settings use 32kbps (for silence only), 128kbps, 160kbps, 192kbps, 224kbps, 256kbps, and 320kbps bitrates by default. In fact, I believe that all Lame settings can use the higher bitrates if need be. I know that I have encoded some songs using the -V 4 --vbr-new setting for friends and quite a few frames are encoded at 192kbps and above.

--vbr-new is applied by default with 3.98 and it will always be applied unless you force the older VBR method (can Lame 3.98 still use the older VBR method?).

You're absolutely right, but I don't get one thing:
If V3 has a range of 155-195, how is it possible that when encoding you see sometimes
it's in 128kbps(or other bitrates which aren't in the range)?

The "range" you mention is the values of the average bitrate you expect to come out. The values used for encoding individual frames will differ.

Ok thanks everyone.

I use -V 0 --vbr-new and LAME 3.97 final. "V0" would be the "true possible VBR" in which frames can be at the range of 32k-320k. I'm satisfied with it, because it's immune to V2 shortcommings and it reduces a lot of killer samples (even though there are still some out there).

What do you mean by true possible VBR at 32k-320k?

I've used LAME -V2, -V3, and -V4 and watching the histogram of the command-line window as the encoder works, those modes encode some frames at 32kbps (mostly silent periods of a track) and even a dozen or so frames of the track at 320kbps.

For example, look at the following encoding using -p -h -v --vbr-new -V4.

Some frames are encoded at 32kbps, some at 48kbps, some at 128kbps, most at 160kbps and 192kbps, all the way up to about 100 frames at 320kbps.

-p -h -v ? What does that get you?

Might as well thow in -c -f -p while you are at it.

Yes, you are correct: -V0 does not have the monopoly on using 320kbps where required.

I suppose you could say that it may use it more often than -V4, but that's all.

-h is already the default
-v is redundant, already specified by -V4
-p takes up extra space to add a checksum that nothing uses

If I understood what I read correctly, -p reduces quality because it steals bits that would have otherwise been used as data.

That would be the case with a CBR encoding. With VBR it just inflates the overall filesize unnecessarily.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

You guys are right. For some reason, I got it into my head that -p did something different, regarding an advanced psychoacoustic model. Since it is pretty much of little use except in special cases, I'll remove that from my LAME command line settings within foobar and EAC.