Ok, I ordered the eminem show off of cdnow since the stores here are out of everything, and I've been waiting now two weeks for it, I heard it just got shipped two days ago. I'm getting impatient and I really want this for Friday(this isn't the first time cdnow's taken forever to ship something ), so I "found" myself two copies and have 'em here, 192k LAME 3.88 beta(no joint stereo), and a -q8 MPC one(both ripped w/ EAC).

What'd sound better; the 192k LAME 3.88 beta, or a -q8 MP that I will transcode to an --alt preset standard -Z LAME 3.90.2 MP3? I'd like to listen to this on my MP3 CD player without carrying an extra CD of the WAVs I made from the MPCs and put it on the MP3 CD, so transcode is necessary .

I remember testing before on another site after I said it'd probably sound bad(xtreme MPC transcode) and we had a test, and it was absolutely horrible when transcoding from a -q6 MPC to --aps, I want to see if -q8'd be different.

It'd only be temporary until I can rip the CD myself, so if it's a tad subpar, it wouldn't matter that much. :-)

i would have to say that the q8 MPC would be better quality, or just go with whatever has the larger file size

It's been discussed before actually.

The verdict is:

MPC -q6 (and up of course) transcoded to LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard is transparent. i.e. you can't tell that it was transcoded at all.

LAME 192K CBR is NOT transparent, so there you have it.

Hmmmm, on what stuff? I ABXed it 15/16 'cause of some wierd warbly effect on -q6. Well, if it's good enough for most of HA, it'll be good enough for me at -q8.

Thanks