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Topic: Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit (Read 4576 times) previous topic - next topic
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Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

I can fit up to 100 albums on my Rio Nitrus if I encode them at CBR32.  I'm using Smpman's stable LAME compile with the following switches:

-b 32 -m j

The results are plenty good enough for subway listening and then some.  Much better than same bitrate WMA or MusicMatch 8 MP3 (Fraunhofer codec).  Good frequency range and very little flanging.

Question:

> Are there any other switches I should add to the LAME command line to make these low-bit files sound even better?

Thanks if you respond.

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #1 –
wow 32kbit/s is really low for mp3, that must sound awful ... try something like

-b 64 -h --resample 32

(-h for slower HQ mode, resample for, well resample to 32KHz)

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #2 –
Try using just --preset 32 with either lame 3.93.1 or the modified 3.90.3.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #3 –
Quote
Try using just --preset 32 with either lame 3.93.1 or the modified 3.90.3.

Maybe add -a to force mono?

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #4 –
32 kbps ... good enough for subway listening ... fair enough. 

Anyway, I would use the following option (with LAME 3.90.3):

Code: [Select]
--alt-preset cbr 32 -m m


However, MUSICMATCH Jukebox should produce better quality as it uses the Fraunhofer encoding engine (which is better at bitrates under 128 kbps).

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #5 –
I had read that about MM8/Fraunhofer, but found that some of the MP3s I created that way had "skipping" problems on my Nitrus.  The same files created with LAME don't have that problem.

Thanks for the responses...

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #7 –
Not sure what you mean by "Intensity Stereo".

I do get some stereo effect from LAME even at this low bitrate.  I prefer that to MM8 in mono.

Thanks.

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #8 –
There are 4 types of Joint Stereo frames:

Simple Stereo
Mid/Side Stereo
Intensity Stereo
Mid/Side Stereo & Intensity Stereo (Mixed)

LAME can only use Simple Stereo and Mid/Side Stereo, while Fraunhofer encoders also support Intensity Stereo and Mixed Stereo.

Edit:

Simple Stereo: The encoder will produce a left and a right channel, while assigning more bits to the channel which has a higher dynamic and less bits to the channel with less dynamic. It will NOT divide the bitrate 50/50, as that method is called Dual Mono!

Mid/Side Stereo: The encoder will produce a middle and a side channel. The middle channel receives more bits than the side channel. The encoder uses this formula for dividing / assembling the channels (99.9% losslessly):

M = (R + L) / 2
S = (R - L) / 2

R = M - S
L = M + S

Intensity Stereo: The encoder will encode portions where the left and right channels are almost the same as mono, while still providing a limited stereo effect when the two channels are differen (lossy)

Mixed Stereo: The encoder mixes the Mid/Side Stereo method with the Intensity Stereo Method.

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #11 –
OK, I have found another possible source for your problem: MPEG 2.5. Players are not required to support MPEG 2.5 as it isn't part of the ISO standard, but was added by the Fraunhofer Institute in order to support low sampling rates.

You could try to encode a file with LAME using the additional option "--resample 8" and check if the file skips. If it does, the problem is with MPEG 2.5.

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #12 –
Quote
The results are plenty good enough for subway listening and then some. Much better than same bitrate WMA or MusicMatch 8 MP3 (Fraunhofer codec). Good frequency range and very little flanging.


what are you listening with?  melbourne subway is pretty loud, and even with the windows down i could still hear grossness at 32kbps.  mp3 as a whole simply breaks down at that level unless you're doing 22050 mono, or 11025 forced joint stereo with no short blocks.

LAME is damn good, but not THAT good 

[edit]
personally i'd settle for fitting 33.3333 albums on a player at 96kbps (the absolute lowest i'm able to get lame sounding nice).  maybe even settle for 25 albums at 128kbps.  don't know what train you take, but it's not going to take 25 albums to get you home...

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #13 –
Quote
Mid/Side Stereo: The encoder will produce a middle and a side channel. The middle channel receives more bits than the side channel. The encoder uses this formula for dividing / assembling the channels (99.9% losslessly):

M = (R + L) / 2
S = (R - L) / 2

R = M - S
L = M + S

Intensity Stereo: The encoder will encode portions where the left and right channels are almost the same as mono, while still providing a limited stereo effect when the two channels are differen (lossy)

Just as an educational aside.. the (b) option is the same method used to encode stereo FM broadcast signals.

Is "intensity" similar to  the noise reduction used for weak signals in FM where you low-pass (and maybe attenuate) the difference signal ?
 

Best LAME Switches for Very Low Bit

Reply #14 –
Doesn't the Nitrus support ogg?