From: The Best settings for mp3

2006-03-26 23:28:45

As you don't care about file size my advice is:
Use either
- 3.98a3 -V0 (if you want to use current lame)
or
- 3.90.3 or 3.91 --abr 256 -h (if you don't care it's an older version)
or
- another encoder and setting as in my listening test here on HA.

Reasons and details for this:

I was trying to find out what to use to get at the 'perceptible but not annoying' abxing quality level even with the worst problem samples I know. In practical listening situations even when careful listening concentration is a lot lower than when abxing so this quality level achieved with very problematic samples has a prectical impact.

What I found was that with mp3 224 kbps leads to the required quality with most encoders and settings. cbr224 usually does the job, and when using vbr it takes a good vbr design to improve quality and not to make things worse with problem samples.

As for current lame it's highly advisable to use 3.98a3 for the sake of robustness even with problem samples especially if you want to use -Vx. The -Vx modes (or alt-preset vbr modes) before 3.98a3 were not very robust when it came to problem samples.
Lame's abr modes however have always been robust ways to use vbr.

As a result if you want to use current lame 3.98a3 -V0 is a quite robust setting.

If you don't mind using an older lame version you can use 3.90.3 or 3.91 with
--abr 224 -h (or higher) or --alt-preset 224 (or higher) or the corresponding cbr way to do it. To me robustness of this older version is higher than with current lame while not giving away overall quality but I have to admit that my conviction is based on only one sample cause 3.98a3 really brought a big progress.

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