[LnxPrgr3]

You have said you can hear an improvement between 192 and 320kbps. Can you hear a difference between -V0 and -b320? Without knowing which is which? Repeatably?

Then again, if -b320 helps you sleep better at night...

 

[kilgoretrout]

I found this to be a good resource for information about mp3 encoding
LAME - Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase

 

[E.B.M.Head]

Well... regarding the Low Pass Filter:
Lame 3.98 now has -Y switch that temporary lowers the Low Pass Filter if 320 kbps ain't enough to encode the full audio spectrum. Lame is now very close to what is possible within the MP3 format (VBR, Bitrate reservoir, smart choosing of Left/Right or Mid/Side encoding, Freeformat up to 640 kbps, Variable Low Pass Filter,...).
-V0 -Y is the way to go now to get the best possible quality at the lowest bitrate.

But anyway: I wouldn't rip my songs to MP3 only at the moment if I would be on a windows plattform. The Worm.Win32.GetCodec.a / TROJ_MEDPINCH.A / Trojan.ASF.Hijacker.gen is spreading like hellfire on the windows plattform and transcodes all MP3s on your harddisks to WMA. This means your files will only be playable with the Windows Media Player (or other Players that don't care that a WMA File has a MP3 extension) and that the sound quality will degrade.

 

[LnxPrgr3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.B.M.Head /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well... regarding the Low Pass Filter: Lame 3.98 now has -Y switch that temporary lowers the Low Pass Filter if 320 kbps ain't enough to encode the full audio spectrum. Lame is now very close to what is possible within the MP3 format (VBR, Bitrate reservoir, smart choosing of Left/Right or Mid/Side encoding, Freeformat up to 640 kbps, Variable Low Pass Filter,...). -V0 -Y is the way to go now to get the best possible quality at the lowest bitrate.

Code:

[left]experimental switches: -Y lets LAME ignore noise in sfb21, like in CBR[/left]

This switch is not new to 3.98, is not a variable lowpass, is not enabled by default until you go down to -V3, and is not a good idea to blindly switch on.

What it does is lets the encoder ignore the psychoacoustic model for the last scalefactor band. When sfb21 is distorted, the encoder can only allocate more bits to the frame to fix it due to a limitation in the mp3 format. VBR can do this, and so does by default at the higher settings.

In other words, all you're doing is preventing the encoder from allocating more bits to a frame to fix high frequency distortion. This will reduce bitrate, but will not improve quality.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.B.M.Head /img/forum/go_quote.gif But anyway: I wouldn't rip my songs to MP3 only at the moment if I would be on a windows plattform. The Worm.Win32.GetCodec.a / TROJ_MEDPINCH.A / Trojan.ASF.Hijacker.gen is spreading like hellfire on the windows plattform and transcodes all MP3s on your harddisks to WMA. This means your files will only be playable with the Windows Media Player (or other Players that don't care that a WMA File has a MP3 extension) and that the sound quality will degrade.

Thats a nasty virus. Wouldn't a physical firewall[via router] protect me?


Fortunately 90% of my music is in FLAC anyway. Only mp3s I have are on SDHC cards for my D2.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.B.M.Head /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wouldn't rip my songs to MP3 only at the moment if I would be on a windows plattform. The Worm.Win32.GetCodec.a / TROJ_MEDPINCH.A / Trojan.ASF.Hijacker.gen is spreading like hellfire on the windows plattform and transcodes all MP3s on your harddisks to WMA. This means your files will only be playable with the Windows Media Player (or other Players that don't care that a WMA File has a MP3 extension) and that the sound quality will degrade.

Sounds nasty!
Another reason to stay clear of MS Windows...

 

[kilgoretrout]

I agree. Personally, I don't use the internet because of the risk of getting a virus is too great. Same thing with sex.

All my data is transmitted via carrier pigeons that are inspected for viruses in both the digital and analog domains for maximum security.

Seriously though, getting a computer virus that converts all your mp3 files converted to wma is not the worst thing that could happen to your life from a computer virus.

 

[E.B.M.Head]

More Info on that Trojan:
http://www.trustedsource.org/blog/13...ltimedia-files

Appart from that all your mp3s are transcoded to WMA and carry the Trojan in it, it also seems that it has some problems with VBR files and some of the transcoded files playback too fast or too slow. If you don't have a backup then you have to rerip everything. IMHO this is nearly as bad as deleting the harddisk completely.

According the Y switch:
Quote:

-Y Advanced Setting The -Y setting is especially useful for use on audio that has been recorded from radio transmissions that do not have any audio greater than 16kHz. That generally includes most UK broadcasts, and indeed is especially relevant for older mixes that were recorded onto cassette tapes (as the cassette tape frequency limit is approx 15-16kHz). In simple terms this means that by using the switch you'll save a few KBs and produce a slightly lower VBR bitrate as the encoder doesn't have to worry about audio over 16kHz. The technical explanation goes something like: sfb21 bloat is possible with LAME settings -V0 through -V2. Due to faults in the design of the Layer III format itself, encoding audio of 16kHz and higher will cause more bits to be needed than normal. The Heavy Metal genre suffers with this sfb21 bloat problem sometimes. -V3 through -V9 do not have this problem as they have the -Y switch activated by default. This switch basically makes it where if the data above 16kHz will bloat the bitrate it is not encoded. So, you only use it on the -V0, -V1 & -V2 switches.

LAME - TMB Wiki

 

[LnxPrgr3]

Quote:

-Y Advanced Setting The -Y setting is especially useful for use on audio that has been recorded from radio transmissions that do not have any audio greater than 16kHz. That generally includes most UK broadcasts, and indeed is especially relevant for older mixes that were recorded onto cassette tapes (as the cassette tape frequency limit is approx 15-16kHz). In simple terms this means that by using the switch you'll save a few KBs and produce a slightly lower VBR bitrate as the encoder doesn't have to worry about audio over 16kHz. The technical explanation goes something like: sfb21 bloat is possible with LAME settings -V0 through -V2. Due to faults in the design of the Layer III format itself, encoding audio of 16kHz and higher will cause more bits to be needed than normal. The Heavy Metal genre suffers with this sfb21 bloat problem sometimes. -V3 through -V9 do not have this problem as they have the -Y switch activated by default. This switch basically makes it where if the data above 16kHz will bloat the bitrate it is not encoded. So, you only use it on the -V0, -V1 & -V2 switches.

In other words, we avoid bitrate bloat by allowing audible distortion. It doesn't avoid encoding energy past 16k anyway -- it just ignores any distortion there.

If your material has nothing useful past 16k anyway, why not use --lowpass 16000? Then, I doubt throwing in an extra -Y will cause any harm.

Alternatively, use a format where the only way to solve high frequency distortion isn't to throw bits at the whole spectrum

 

[Chri5peed]

That Trojan is like a virus not affecting a Mac. Mac-users think their computers almost use god-given anti-virus software...more like the makers of viruses are not going to spend their time writing to infect such a tiny userbase.

With this, an uber popular codec is targetted[mp3]. If you use an obscure codec or a Mac, you'll be fine.