Re: Undecided, please help
Reply #9 – 2018-07-07 17:51:10
If you mean mediainfo output, e.g. "Encoding settings: -m j -V 4 -q 3 -lowpass 20.5" then you're wrong. Such info doesn't mean that the file was encoded with -V 4. Why?The non-"x" files are encoded by someone else using LAME 3.92. The "x" files are encoded by me via Audacity using LAME 3.99.5 from somebody else's FLAC. Both sets have equal amount of information -> 320kbps. The art of lossy conversion is to decide, which information can be discarded to fit the bit-rate. I assume that the FLAC's are true lossless and not bloated lossy files. Trash those suspect "non-x" and don't bother with them anymore, if you don't know, how these were made. In Audacity, you have to set the dithering setting properly before you export: 16-bit source without editing that alters the waveform -> off Higher bit-depth of source or editing or resampled -> on ("triangle" should be enough) Dither is a "good" quality loss (very very very low noise). It prevents distortion in some circumstances. If you just recode from 16-bit to MP3, dither is unnecessary. Unless there are extremely quiet parts, this loss is usually inaudible, but is clearly visible in the treble area of a spectogram. That may fool you but is in fact inaudible as long the music is playing without cranking up the volume knob during silence. It is not THAT issue if you set this setting wrong. But it makes spectograms very dusty. And after you set it properly: Make fresh MP3's from the FLAC files with proper settings and the most recent LAME version. Is your result is still worse than you expect, you should analyze the FLAC files. It might be possible, that these are made from lossy files and your old MP3 files are made from different source. But if you encode from original CD using a proper tool, the MP3's are as best as possible. If that is not enough, use different codec (Opus, Vorbis, AAC...). But don't think too much about the upper half of the spectogram that suggests "more information". That is only the treble area where human ears can't hear that good. The most unimportant frequencies are here. The really important information is in the hot bottom half, where you can't really tell by looking at the spectogram, which file has more information in that part. If the MP3 encoder decides to sacrifice the highest frequencies first, it is a good decision, even if it looks more thinned out on spectogram. That is part of the psychoacoustic model MP3 relies on. I think, the recent LAME has some improvements in that model so it discards more upmost treble in order to keep more mid-range.... which is better.