Hi @ all,
I'm new in this forum and I want to use the new lameencoder. Untill now I've used -r3mix settings, but must of you said that alt-preset is better. But now I have a little problem: If I encode my songs with the new alpha11 I get about 225kbits with -aps and not 192. What are the best settings to get a bitrate of about 192? Which commandline?

Big_Berny

lame 3.94alpha has not been tested nearly as much as 3.90.2 yet. It's not supposed to be used for encoding, only for testing. Have a look at recommended compiles/recommended settings threads (sticky in MP3-General forum). Depending on what kind of music you encode,
lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard
lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard -Y or
lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset 192
is what you want.

Thanx,
I encode a "80's Collection" (20CDs) so they are different songs. I think I'll use "lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard", but isn't 3.94 better? Or 3.93.1?

Those versions are not as extensively tested as 3.90.2. They might be better on some parts than 3.90.2, but we know for a fact that 3.90.2 is great for the vast majority of samples.

Psychoacoustics are not like Word Processors; the next higher version will not include all of the benefits of the previous version, it will only be different in a way thought by the developers at the time to be better. We know 3.90.2 is "great." We don't know if the higher versions are as "great" as 3.90.2, much less "better."

I doubt that 3.93.1 will be better. 3.93 was supposed to be a fix for an obscure bug which caused LAME to crash or something (plus you could now use LAME on several other OSes), but if I remember right there were other bugs introduced into 3.93 affecting the sound quality. Who's to say everything is fixed in 3.93.1? I believe the output of 3.93.1 to be a bit unstable, but anyway, you can find out for yourself if you do some listening tests. I just stick with 3.90.2/3.92 for serious encoding (and 3.94 alpha for the occasional testing)

3.90.2 is kind of Dibrom's version of LAME. He spent a lot of time tweaking it and making sure every preset gave very good results. In other words, it's a seriously tested version of LAME and known to do what it's supposed to do (as opposed to 3.93.1 - where little is known).

Anyway, 3.94 (according to what I have seen on this forum) seems to have undergone a lot of testing. Though it may give you some high bitrates now and then, the quality shouldn't really be that bad - it might even be that it gives slightly better results than 3.90.2 (depending on what switch/setting you use) for all I know.

BTW, I believe that if you'd bother to read the sticky in the MP3 forum about which LAME version is the recommended version, you'd probably found an answer to all of your questions.

Lastly, if the MP3 format isn't a must for your archiving, try Garf's tuned Ogg Vorbis encoder (quality 6 or something like that) or MPC (quality 5 / standard)

Don't use alpha11 unless you are testing. Archive your mp3's with a version such as 3.90.2 3.92 or 3.93.1 Do NOT use 3.93. I personally use 3.93.1 for archiving and I do a bit of testing with 3.94

IMO If it's for archiving (only copy) use mpc or lossless, once you have a quality copy you can use 3.90.2 one week then 3.93.1, 3.94a another week & 3.95 when it comes out.