Now as far as 160 and 192 go... 160 constant is pretty good (a hell of a lot better than 128) but it's nowhere near as good as 192.

If you want a good compromise, use VARIABLE BIT RATE. That will analyze the music and choose the bitrate on a per-frame basis.

For arguably one of the best configurations for LAME, take a look at http://www.r3mix.net - the guys behind the --r3mix combo setting.

[This message has been edited by hybrid8 on 27 October 2001 @ 17:36]

Of course if you want to go for the full gusto, do ABR with a minimum of 256kbit, Stereo and an increased lowpass filter value. With a quality setting of 2 (using the dll) I was getting about 2.2MB per minute.

[This message has been edited by NeoRenegade on 28 October 2001 @ 22:42]

I have used most of the r3mix settings but have modified.

My base bitrate is increased to 112 as per my liking and also a note in the LAME distribution docs. I also force with -F to make sure the bitrate never drops below that value, even for silence.

Next is the biggest mistake in r3mix. NORMALIZING to 98%. That's a great way to flatten all your tracks. He goes on to discourage it on one page yet he keeps it as a default option within his preset. Doh.

I also use VBR quality 0 and not 1. I found it improves the average bitrate without pushing it too high that it no longer makes sense to use VBR.

Things are working pretty well with the settings. The only opther thing to do is put a -s to supress output of the histogram and progress which should improve speeds a bit.

Spaceknarf, if you wanted to be really cool, you'd use freeform bitrate and do it at 320kbit per channel. Or, how about just leaving it as WAV and compressing it with some non-lossy compressor? It's all a trade off between how many bits you're using to resolve the sound and how well you want to keep your channels separated.

Of course Mr. r3mix also has some bad advice on his site. Like telling people not to use ID3 tags just because some players have bugs

Surely this is good advice??

auldyin

Regarding -mj and -ms. Do your own tests. See which sounds better. IMO they sound almost, -almost- the same. But I've tested both on songs with a lot of spacial audio characteristics and I personally think -ms sounds better and I still have enough bits for good deep bass and highs around 19.6. Remember, tests and presenting data is fine, but it's still YOUR ears that will decide whether you like how it sounds or not.

[This message has been edited by Anthony S on 31 October 2001 @ 08:37]

Listening to music is by nature subjective.....no two ears are exactly the same, no two hi-fi systems are exactly the same and so on.

Roel, at r3mix has used tried and tested samples and techniques to produce a preset which in his opinion, and that of many others, is as good as possible considering bitrate, stereo vs joint stereo, known artifacts etc.

Nobody said that the r3mix preset was perfect...but, in the opinion of many, its a damned good attempt at reproducing the sound "quality" of a CD.

You are correct of course that you might think that your settings are better than r3mix, but then again, this is subjective and what you hear is not the same as I do.

As you know, the whole preset argument is very complex and should you wish to contribute, I'm sure that your opinions will be welcome on the forums at r3mix or hydrogenaudio.org where the whole subject of compression and quality are discussed.

Enjoy,
auldyin

[This message has been edited by auldyin on 31 October 2001 @ 12:34]

Please give me the % and the lower than, higher than setting as well.

Thanks in advance.