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MP3 "felt" better than MPC? At --standard, it kills MP3 at any bitrate, on anything.

Use ABX tests to support these claims. www.pcabx.com

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"Tastes Great!" ... "Less Filling!"

<wondering how many people here are old enough to remember those beer commercials>

That's why I like lurking around here. It's always amusing to listening to people declare that such-and-such is better than such-and-such.

For what it's worth, Wilding, MPC is generally accepted as the "better" encoder where quality is concerned, but there are always exceptions to every rule. Personally, I have never encoded a piece of music using MPC that didn't sound transparent to me, and I have very good equipment and, unfortunately, very good ears. I can't say the same for LAME. But in fairness, and this is extremely important, I have not encoded every piece of music there is, so eventually I am sure I would find MPC lacking as well for certain songs.

If you want to stick with LAME, that's fine. Honestly, a month after you encoded the song and your ears have forgotten what the original sounds like, you won't notice the difference. Trust me.

And to answer your question, I wouldn't recommend using the --alt-preset insane setting. --alt-preset standard is fine. If you want that "just makes me better" feeling and don't mind the extra space, then use the --alt-preset extreme setting.

Omni

WinABX

--ms 0

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/mpc/decoders...dows-1.95z6.zip
mppdec file.mpc fileMPC.wav

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EDIT: corrected misspelled word
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Use the "search" function. Topics like this have been discussed many times.
Most senior members of HA don't care to re-explain things that have already been debated numerous times.

And to decode an MPC, just use mppdec.exe! How difficult can it be? Get the MPC frontend if you can't stand command-line executables.

EDIT: Evidently I was wrong about dual mono, disregard what was said here & see post below.

Dual mono and simple stereo are two different modes in MP3. (don't know about MPC)

Dual mono was initially made for multilanguages or things like that, where the correlation of the data between the channels would be very small.
It doesn't have sense to be used with stereo content.

Simple stereo works independently between the two channels (i.e. it is NOT joint stereo), but shares the bitstream, meaning that it is not strictly half the bitrate for each.

And, as you might already know, joint stereo does take the correlation of the channels into consideration.

About MPC, all this topic made me remind of the "problems" it had encoding Surround sounds, where IIRC (if I recall correct) -ms 15 (as used in -extreme ) was recommended.

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[quote]Posted by Wilding
So I'm really interested in going with Lame from now on and want the best advice on how to configure Lame (whichever version is recommended)[/quote]Lame Recommendations

[quote]Posted by Wilding
I'd love to hear about recommended mp3 settings with Lame.[/quote]Recommended mp3 Settings With Lame

[quote]Posted by Wilding
Regardless, what I want is either the best settings for and version of Lame to encode. [/quote]Best Settings and Version for Lame

[quote]Posted by Wilding
I've already used the search function and I know topics like this have been discussed many times. I was looking for some definitive information. I'm not looking for re-explanation. It seems like no one is willing to say "these are the best settings for Lame"[/quote]IveyLeaguer's Best Settings For Lame

[quote]Posted by Wilding
It seems like no one is willing to say "this is how to get the best performance with mpc".[/quote]IveyLeaguer's "How To Get The Best Performance With MPC"

[quote]Posted by Wilding
I'm really torn on mp3 vs. mpc and the whole "feeling" situation along with how best to configure the encoders to get the best performance ....    There seems to be no concensus on format or settings that I'm satisfied with.[/quote]Oh, goodness. You know, maybe you should use either FLAC or APE for your compression needs. But if that won't work for you or, for some reason, it just doesn't make you happy, I can show you the concensus of the world's most knowledgable experts. You'll find those here:
Expert Consensus - MP3
Expert Consensus - MPC

[quote]Posted by Wilding
I feel as though my original questions about mp3/Lame haven't been answered.[/quote]You may feel differently after reading this .

[quote]Posted by Wilding
Also, does anyone have a definitive answer about the --ms 0 switch for mppenc (mpc)?[/quote]Yes, I have a definite answer. Here it is ......[quote]Posted by JohnV[quote]It seems MPC isn't capable of stereo even if I wanted to try it out.[/quote]
--ms 0[/quote]But first, you may want to read this.

[quote]Posted by Wilding
What is -Z for and should I make use of it?[/quote]The answer to that is located here.

[quote]Posted by Wilding
I didn't create a new topic because I hadn't first exhausted myself searching for an answer to my question only to find more ambiguity in the search and the debates--ambiguities that fail and continue to fail (even in this topic) to answer my questions.[/quote]Hmmmmm ..........

[quote]Posted byWilding
At some point when I'm more coherent ......  if any words seem brash or otherwise insulting, please attribute it to the frayed state of the author's ability to react coherently ...[/quote]You know, I feel your pain. And that suggests an idea that might help you out. Why not just let it go for now? Then, when you're rested, refreshed, and in a sober state of mind, you can take another look at the issue and the task at hand. I would suggest another listening test to begin your new session. It is universally acknowledged, that due to the disparities that distinguish two separate states of mind, the music could sound differently. And your anguish could possibly end right there. If not, for the best chance of success, you should begin here.

[quote]Posted by Wilding
If I've turned people away from this thread for any reason, please come back and help me out. Otherwise, I guess I posted all my questions and put all of this out there for nothing. [/quote]Honestly, nobody wants that. So if you have a question, don't hesitate to ask.

Moderator, please delete this topic.