Just wondering, I've been reading around a bit lately because I had always that joint stereo was what one should use (sorry to everyone that just winced reading this), but now it seems JS is better for the <200kbps range or so.. I'm encoding in -V0 --vbr-new -ms and wondering if it's worth it, V0 encodes to joint stereo by default.. I couldn't really hear any differences between the two (-ms vs. -mj).
I know some of you might say V0 is pointless but I just want the highest quality VBR rips I can produce, and I don't know what other settings I might add to my lame command line, or still whether to use stereo or joint stereo.
Regards,
Just wondering, I've been reading around a bit lately because I had always that joint stereo was what one should use (sorry to everyone that just winced reading this), but now it seems JS is better for the <200kbps range or so.. I'm encoding in -V0 --vbr-new -ms and wondering if it's worth it, V0 encodes to joint stereo by default.. I couldn't really hear any differences between the two (-ms vs. -mj).
I know some of you might say V0 is pointless but I just want the highest quality VBR rips I can produce, and I don't know what other settings I might add to my lame command line, or still whether to use stereo or joint stereo.
Regards,
one answer to all such questions: use recomended settings, because they are tuned for best quality (at least should be)
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....;f=15&t=995 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=15&t=995)
I know some of you might say V0 is pointless but I just want the highest quality VBR rips I can produce, and I don't know what other settings I might add to my lame command line, or still whether to use stereo or joint stereo.
Regards,
Using V0 isn't pointless, but using -ms is. Let LAME decide when it needs full stereo frames rather than forcing it to waste bits for no good reason.
The only thing you should be adding to your commandline is --vbr-new. Nothing else.
using full stereo isn't just pointless, it will negatively affect the file quality (even on -V0) because it wastes bits. Even 320kbit frames aren't big enough for some stuff, and thats as large as MP3 can go. So when you have music that is bitrate starved, and you're wasting bits on full stereo (thats what it is - a complete waste), your quality suffers. Don't do it! The LAME architects know what they're doing!
What is people's obsession with using L/R stereo over M/S?
Well, I had previously ripped all my stuff with joint stereo, the default way lame decided to handle it at the tmie, but a few days ago I had to rip a CD and kind of got reading some things, just decided to try out stereo vs. joint stereo, and then I myself could not tell the difference, so here we are.
But yesterday I went back and ripped things into joint stereo again anyway after what I had read here.. so thanks guys for your help.
I have done some little testing on some files with -V2 and -V0.
I couldn't hear much difference, but imho the high-hats were a little bit clearer on -V0.
One thing I noticed is that Lame has more full stereo frames in -V0. On the same track the -V2 has had much more M/S frames. Now what? Is the -V0 better than -V2 because of more full stereo or is it only wasted ? Would that mean that -V2 has only "semi-stereo"?
Is the -V0 better than -V2 because of more full stereo or is it only wasted ?
It is only wasted. M/S
is full stereo; it's a lossless stereo encoding method. V0 simply changes to L/R more often than V2 (might be easier to encode, I don't know), but this doesn't affect stereo separation in any way.