HydrogenAudio

EDIT: The use case would be encoding albums.  As Digga mentioned, you might use a different preset for other applications (which might be a topic for another poll, but not this one ).

A brief note on why you choose the one you did and what type of music you genearlly listen to would be helpful.

Thanks!

I edited the poll, so it applies to LAME versions newer than 3.95 as well.

I voted aps.
however, for me it depends heavily on the purpose.
--> what about other presets, cbr and abr?!

- aps for album / song rips from CD
- ap cbr 128 or ap cbr 160-192 for DVD rips (1CD or 2CD)
- ap 160 for most friends with tight space.

I voted aps.
however, for me it depends heavily on the purpose.
--> what about other presets, cbr and abr?!

- aps for album / song rips from CD
- ap cbr 128 or ap cbr 160-192 for DVD rips (1CD or 2CD)
- ap 160 for most friends with tight space.
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Sorry Digga, I think what you I should do is limit the application, i.e. for song/album rips.

Thanks for the useful info on how you use your presets!

Edit: Changed using info to useful info

Sorry Digga, I think what you I should do is limit the application, i.e. for song/album rips.

then it would be good idea to indicate that in the thread title 

EDIT: The use case would be encoding albums. As Digga mentioned, you might use a different preset for other applications (which might be a topic for another poll, but not this one wink.gif).

I usually encode with --preset extreme.  It's probably excessive if one considers my hearing abilities (average), my taste in music (mostly J-Pop, especially the fluffy variety), and my audio equipments (iPod or a pair of $50 computer speakers).

I reckon that even --preset medium would probably be acceptable to me, but hey HD space is cheap.  And one never knows; I may win the lottery tomorrow which would allow me to buy better speakers...

then it would be good idea to indicate that in the thread title 

Is there anyway for me to edit the poll title?  Seems that I can only edit my post, not the poll.

Thanks!

3.97 alpha (latest version) '-V 4 --vbr-new' for my H120 iRiver portable.

3.96.1 -V4 --vbr-new for my zen touch dap.

Just got a 60g iPod Photo and am slowly ripping my 600+ CD collection to MP3.

Currently using EAC w/ LAME 3.90.3 with standard.

I had done a few dics with 3.96.1 and standard but after reading the recommendation of the forum, I went to 3.90.3 as the indication was the standard preset had better quality in 3.90.3. 

I'm curious as to how much better quality standard in 3.90.3 might just really have, because the average filesize was about 1.0 to 1.5 megs less using standard in 3.96.1

I figured standard was a good way to only have to do this once for many many years (I hope).  I did not feel like spending the cash for HDD space to FLAC everything to save myself some ripping time in the future if I want to re-encode with something better.  Afterall, only reason I got an iPod is because it was a gift, so by the time I may buy a new portable media device, I figure the average HDD size will easily be 120gigs or more and they will play FLAC or whatever the lossless compressed format is of the day and it won't be an issue about loosing quality and all these crazy encoder settings.

I'm curious as to how much better quality standard in 3.90.3 might just really have, because the average filesize was about 1.0 to 1.5 megs less using standard in 3.96.1
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Yes, it would be interesting to see a listening test for this.

Given that you have an iPod, why did you choose MP3 over AAC. I'm in the midst of deciding this myself (MP3 standard vs AAC128 VS AAC192)?

Thanks!

3.96.1 --alt-preset standard
probably a little bit of overkill but that's ok

Quote

I'm curious as to how much better quality standard in 3.90.3 might just really have, because the average filesize was about 1.0 to 1.5 megs less using standard in 3.96.1
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Yes, it would be interesting to see a listening test for this.

Given that you have an iPod, why did you choose MP3 over AAC. I'm in the midst of deciding this myself (MP3 standard vs AAC128 VS AAC192)?

Thanks!
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Opted for MP3 for the more universalness of it, but in reality, I'd probably stick with iPod type devices in the future, so it's kind of a moot point.  I think I ultimately did it because MP3 is just what everyone knows.

Good news is, iTunes rips to AAC waaaaay faster then EAC + LAME on my current DVD drive, so if I want to go AAC in the future, it won't take nearly as long.

If I remember correctly (Read a lot on here today before making my choices) AAC128 was comparable to MP3 192 CBR.  Given that I'm using VBR with standard preset, I could have saved space and gotten a similar type of quality with AAC 128 or AAC 160, but I wasn't overly concerned with the space, I have 60g afterall and will not put 100% of my collection onto the iPod.

I use "--alt-preset standard" with LAME 3.90.3 for my albums. These encodes I mostly listen to on my Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 (20 gigs), which can hold about 3,000 songs with this setting, which is just about how many songs I have total when all said and done... Although APS is probably too much for my listening conditions (pretty good headphones (Sennheiser HD-555s) in a noisy environment =/) but it comes in handy when I hook it up to my stereo or listen in a quiet environment...

I mostly use mp3s for friends and then I use LAME 3.96.1 --preset standard.  I pretty much don't use mp3 for anything else anymore.

I listen to all music except hip-hop/rap.  APS works fine for me on my computer.  When I get my stereo set up again I will see how the MP3's sound on it.  If they sound fine, I will continue with APS.  Or, just play the CD on my very old ReVox CD player (1983). 

I used to use APS, but I am considering dropping down to -V3 or -V4 to save on space and because I doubt that I could hear the difference now*.

*[span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%']It looks like I might have damaged my left ear after an injury received last year.[/span]

-V4 --vbr-new, aka --preset fast medium

good enough for me.

LAME 3.97 latest alpha V4-vbr new
Souds awesome to me. I cannot tell it from my old -aps encodes.

Gabriel really deserves the highest props.

Good news is, iTunes rips to AAC waaaaay faster then EAC + LAME on my current DVD drive, so if I want to go AAC in the future, it won't take nearly as long.

yea...try EAC in burst mode...the reason why EAC is slower is because it makes sure your rips will be as perfect as possible...

If I remember correctly (Read a lot on here today before making my choices) AAC128 was comparable to MP3 192 CBR.  Given that I'm using VBR with standard preset, I could have saved space and gotten a similar type of quality with AAC 128 or AAC 160, but I wasn't overly concerned with the space, I have 60g afterall and will not put 100% of my collection onto the iPod.

read again... http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html (http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/results.html)
also, it's hard to compare two different codecs...but AAC 192kbps could be roughly compared to mp3 preset standard...

Quote

Good news is, iTunes rips to AAC waaaaay faster then EAC + LAME on my current DVD drive, so if I want to go AAC in the future, it won't take nearly as long.

yea...try EAC in burst mode...the reason why EAC is slower is because it makes sure your rips will be as perfect as possible...

And if you use Burst mode AND Test and Copy onEAC, you get fast rips that are also secure (that is, if the CRC's match). I rip a 60 minute CD in less than 5 minutes this way.

I only use secure if I can't get a matching CRC after three tries

i would use aps

Good news is, iTunes rips to AAC waaaaay faster then EAC + LAME on my current DVD drive, so if I want to go AAC in the future, it won't take nearly as long.
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also, just so you know, you can use [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=29821&hl=otto42+itunesencode]itunes encode[/url] to create quicktime (itunes) acc files. 

--alt-preset standard. All above that is overkill and just wasted diskspace in my eyes. Don´t understand those guys who use --alt-preset insane. 320 kbps is far too high for a lossy file!
Btw: The generating of CRC-checksums seems to be broken in both 3.90.3 and 3.96.1. At least with the formerly mentioned presets I get very often a wrong CRC for the last frame (checked by the utility MP3Test (http://www.shivi.de/MP3Test/)).

I use --alt-preset cbr 128, --alt-preset cbr 160 or --alt-preset cbr 192, for maximum compatibility with hardware players.

When I want something just to sound good for playaback on the computer, I use --alt-preset standard or I use a different format altogether, such as Ogg Vorbis.

lame 3.96.1 --preset standard

Optimal compatability and quality is good enough for a lossy encode (except for the lack of gapless playback), less buggy than 3.90.3. I don't see any need to change to a different lossy encode method, next step is lossless.

Lame 3.96.1 --noreplaygain --preset -fast standard
I find it quite good.
Cannot distinguish from -standard to -fast standard so I voted for speed. 

Lame 3.96.1 -V4 (a.k.a. --preset medium). I use -V2 (a.k.a. --preset standard) every once in awhile, especially in cases where I've edited a wav file before encoding (for example, on Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, so that the quiet parts aren't so ridiculously quiet compared to the louder parts).
I decided against using --vbr-new (a.k.a. "fast" preset) because I've noticed it failing (at -V4) on a couple of samples, and because it doesn't spread out the bitrate over frames as much.
-V4 is good enough for my hearing on nearly everything, and saves a fair bit on bitrate.

--alt-preset insane

No one has ever complained that my mp3s sound too good. It also saves me from having to bother with tedious listening tests.

Don't do much ripping lately but,

3.90.3, alt-preset standard.

lame 3.97 alpha 10, -V 2

LAME version 3.97 (alpha 10, Apr  1 2005 20:16:32) (http://www.mp3dev.org/)

I'm using MP3 format to feed my small portable player, and I used to set LAME with --preset 128...140 for most encodings. In some occasion, I prefer -V5 --vbr-new or -V4 --vbr-new.

EDIT: lame version = 3.97 alpha

Currently I use lame 3.97 alpha 10 --preset standard -Y

--alt-preset insane

No one has ever complained that my mp3s sound too good. It also saves me from having to bother with tedious listening tests.
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lossless is your friend

I voted for lame 3.96.1 --preset standard. I reckon that's the most successful lame preset ever made. Files are not very big, sounds not much worse than extreme. Frankly speaking, I would give up lame for OGG Vorbis, if Vorbis was implemented in the hardware I use. I have portable SONY D-NE710. Sounds not bad, but has some problems with some VBR encoded files: determines track time incorrectly and the sound disappeares for a couple of seconds (probably a buffer bug). CBR plays perfect, but no gapless playback provided.

I use -preset extreme, but I'm considering stepping back to -V1. Size is not a HUGE concern, and I somehow feel like I'm buying "insurance" at this bitrate. Generally, output files average <256kbs (rock and electronica), and that's the CBR setting I used to use with older encoders before I discovered LAME. I've ABX'd a number of my own files with -ape and could never tell the difference. So it works for me.

What I CAN tell is the difference between MP3 CD-ROM players, such as comparing my old Panasonic SL-35 with my iRiver iMP-50.  Huge difference in tone and quality, which raises the question of which decoder algorithms different MP3 players use (disk, flash, or HD). But that's a question for a different thread.

Quote

--alt-preset insane

No one has ever complained that my mp3s sound too good. It also saves me from having to bother with tedious listening tests.
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lossless is your friend
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I definitely have the hard drive space for flac or ape, but I'd have to give up my beloved [a href="http://www.muzicman.com/]audio player[/url] since it only supports mp3 and wav.

The players that support lossless don't have all of the features I'm looking for.

Just started using the settings -V 2 -m j -h for recreating my music library over.  I've finished 1 CD and got about 400 to go 
I was using -V 2 -b 192 -m j -h before, but I thought it was time I started taking advantage of VBRs ability to adjust to the sound complexity of a track.
J

Edit: Using EAC .95 pb5 and lame 3.90.3
And do you think those settings should be adequate for use with an iPod? I'm not sure how well it will handle VBR tracks and I use my iPod a ton.  Even got a new car stereo that can controll it a few months back.

Just started using the settings -V 2 -m j -h for recreating my music library over.

Why do you add "-m j -h"? -m j is useless to add, while the -h setting could very well give unwanted effects on quality..

I think it's established around here that you should stick to the default settings 

Well I'm not using them anymore...thx for the info.  I'm still kind of looking around before committing to encoding my whole music library over.  Oh and what about setting min and max bitrates?  Is that also something already included in the preset?
J
With the presets doesn't the bitrate decide whether its joint stereo or regular though?  Pretty sure I read that among the tons of pages I've read about Lame tonight.

What I CAN tell is the difference between MP3 CD-ROM players, such as comparing my old Panasonic SL-35 with my iRiver iMP-50.  Huge difference in tone and quality, which raises the question of which decoder algorithms different MP3 players use (disk, flash, or HD). But that's a question for a different thread.


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It probably has more to do with the analog circuitry and the DAC stage than different decoders.

Oh and what about setting min and max bitrates?  Is that also something already included in the preset?

Yes, have a look here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=18091 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=18091)

With the presets doesn't the bitrate decide whether its joint stereo or regular though?

No, it only "decides" between ms & ss.

--alt-preset insane

No one has ever complained that my mp3s sound too good. It also saves me from having to bother with tedious listening tests.
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umm, actually I've heard RIAA is going to file a complain 

Ya, I read through that entire post last night after making this one...sorry for not searching a bit harder.
Thanks for the response I appreciate it. 
J

3.96.1 -V4 (--vbr-new)

Transparent to me when I'm not paying too much attention, as is often the case in my car or with my portable. Even when listening more or less closely I have never been annoyed by the quality, so it has just the right quality/size ratio for me.

And do you think those settings should be adequate for use with an iPod? I'm not sure how well it will handle VBR tracks and I use my iPod a ton.

--preset standard is more than adequate for portable use. If you are low on space, consider stepping down to V3, V4 or even V5. I don't think there should be a problem with VBR files.