the use of "-k" switch in LAME 3.97a11
Reply #6 – 2005-08-17 20:22:17
Oh, it wasn't my intention to imply that the use of the -k switch was better or worse for everyone else stephanV. I was just wondering what other people thought or knew about this, if the filter was necessary for example, or if they too had the same findings, or if they read it didn't make any difference either way, etc.... You did however imply that it was better for you, but to have a meaningful discussion it would be nice if everybody using -k can back up with a listening test he is hearing an actual difference. It prevents everybody suggesting their favorite non-sensical commandlines of 10 paragraphs long. Now I'm not suggesting you do not here the difference, cause I really don't know and I don't think it would be impossible to hear, but its more fruitful to discuss something that you can prove to have observed.Just to comment on your comment about transparency though stephanV, varying degrees of transparency can be achieved by the inclusion or exclusion of frequencies which were obtained in an original recording. For example, if a choir was recorded in a church, but the frequencies which emphasize the acoustic space of the church (reverb) have been filtered out, the recording would sound less transparent, more flat, less alive, as compared to the original. AFAIK the term "transparancy" is most commonly used here to indicate that someone cannot hear the difference between an original file and a lossy encoded file from that original (A file is called transparant, when no audible differences with the original can be heard). This of course means that transparancy is quite a personalised quality of a file: not everybody has the same hearing. Keeping that in mind, there is no such thing as more transparant: you cannot not hear the difference in more degree than one. You either do or don't. Now one could argue that some files would sound closer to the original than others, but I wouldn't call that "more" transparant... maybe this is just nit-picking though...