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Topic: Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer? (Read 5899 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

I'll try not to violate any ToS rules. I don't want to be misunderstood so'll put it in a form of a question.
Is LAME better than Fraunhofer and if yes, why? Please, no long and complicated explanations, I just want it as simple as possible - what makes LAME a better encoder than FhG in terms of quality, if so.

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #1 –
Quote from: _Raziel-BG on
I'll try not to violate any ToS rules. I don't want to be misunderstood so'll put it in a form of a question.
Is LAME better than Fraunhofer and if yes, why? Please, no long and complicated explanations, I just want it as simple as possible - what makes LAME a better encoder than FhG in terms of quality, if so.

Quality is subjective.  It "simply" has more tuning on it, and a huge community of testers and voluteers to help.  And it is, better.  That's why HA recommends lame, not fhg.  or itunes.

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #2 –
Extensive tuning of quality, finding problem samples that show where the encoder needs work in, lots of listening tests to see where it excels and where it fails.

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #3 –
Does the FhG encoder support Mid-side stereo and Intensity stereo?
As far as I know LAME is a VBR optimized encoder. Is FhG a CBR based one?
I heard a claim that FhG encoded mp3s sound more natural on a normal hi-fi system than LAME encoded mp3s. I suppose he's imagining things and that the placebo effect is responsible. Am I right?

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #4 –
Your right. That is a placebo effect.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #5 –
LAME wasn't always better than fhg encoders. More works were probably put into LAME by a constant tuning - year after year. Moreover, it seems that fastenc was mainly optimized for speed whereas LAME looks to be tuned for quality first and then for speed. Even if fast encoding speed doesn't necessary imply low quality, the impact of fastenc brilliant speed is questionable. Fhg fastenc was compared with AudioActive (CBR) which is based on a slow Fhg encoder (IIRC, I'm not 100% sure) and the slowest encoder was claearlybetter, and even tied with LAME (ABR, not VBR):


http://www.rjamorim.com/test/mp3-128/results.html

Not bad for an old encoder...

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #6 –
LAME is better basically because fhg lost interest in their encoder and stopped updating it.  Meanwhile LAME developement continued year after year.  The sheer time, energy and testing eventually gave LAME a decisive advantage over the older fhg encoders.

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #7 –
OK, thank you for the replies. I've been googling around and so far I've come to the conclusions that FhG is indeed a CBR based codec and that it does support joint stereo modes, it's just its implementation of the Mid/Side Stereo mode is of worse quality than LAME's.
All I need now is confirmation from you if I've reached the right conclusions. Or not?

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #8 –
Fraunhofer is the name of a company (or Institute), not of a codec. It wouldn't make a difference if Fhg didn't released several encoders with different names (l3enc, mp3enc, fastenc) and of course quality. In other words, talking about "Fhg codec" may be confusing.
The latest encoder is called fastenc. This encoder is VBR as well as CBR, supports joint-stereo and even Intensity Stereo. Older encoders had a joint-stereo bug (reported by ff123), which is maybe corrected (I don't know).

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: _Raziel-BG on
OK, thank you for the replies. I've been googling around and so far I've come to the conclusions that FhG is indeed a CBR based codec and that it does support joint stereo modes, it's just its implementation of the Mid/Side Stereo mode is of worse quality than LAME's.
All I need now is confirmation from you if I've reached the right conclusions. Or not?


Subjective quality is not matter of techniques nor specification.
LAME developer's suggestion would be helpful.

LAME MP3 vs iTunes AAC - Hydrogenaudio Forums Post#5
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....35&#entry218935

3.97b2 vs. 3.90.3: Kick drum impact? - Hydrogenaudio Forums Post #32
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=374627

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #10 –
i don't think FHG officially supports VBR either... I may be wrong...
Chaintech AV-710

Why si LAME better than Fraunhofer?

Reply #12 –
They just don't add Xing VBR header to created files which is confusing many players (wrong length displayed, problems with seeking). At least it was like that the last time I played with VBR by Fhg.

Edit: spelling
Not really a Signature.