[sporky]

I'm currently using 3.90.2, and it serves me just fine. I've been hearing that 3.90.3 is what most people use. Is it worth upgrading?

Thanks

 

[Welly Wu]

YES!

I think that particular version, 3.90.3, is the most heavily tuned and tested version of LAME. However, there is a newer version which is dramatically faster: 3.96. It is much faster than 3.90.3 but it does have a few bugs which still need to be ironed out. They are currently field testing the 3.97 Alpha 1 version.

 

[sporky]

In what way is 3.90.3 better? Its not worth re-ripping my CDs is it?

 

[Welly Wu]

That decision is up to you. Personally, I avoid all forms of computer audio compression formats especially lossy codecs.

 

[sporky]

I'll assume that the difference is negligible then. I upgraded anyway and will use 3.90.3 from now on.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Stephonovich]

Sorry to kick a dead (well, it will be soon) horse, but quick rundown on the version numbers...

3.90.x is the heavily tweaked versions that are [generally] designed to sound best with the --alt-preset modes. 3.9x are the bone stock ones that have the most cutting edge technology, hence, why they're faster, but also have more bugs, and sometimes, not as good SQ.

I myself use 3.90.3, FWIW.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[halcyon]

3.90.x vs 3.96 (or later).

The jury is still out on this.

On some samples 3.90.X variants win (perceptually), but on others 3.96 does.

There's an ongoing discussion about this in the Hydrogenaudio forums, if you're interested.

I'm using 3.96 myself, because it is insanely fast and because I'd like to help with the development by submitting info on problem samples for the code that is in active development.

 

[Welly Wu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by halcyon 3.90.x vs 3.96 (or later). The jury is still out on this. On some samples 3.90.X variants win (perceptually), but on others 3.96 does. There's an ongoing discussion about this in the Hydrogenaudio forums, if you're interested. I'm using 3.96 myself, because it is insanely fast and because I'd like to help with the development by submitting info on problem samples for the code that is in active development.

LAME version 3.96 is insanely fast! It must be at least five times faster on my old, slow, and clunky Toshiba Satellite notebook. However, I think that whenever the LAME developers get some time this summer they should take a good hard look at 3.96 and address some concerns about errors in the code. Perhaps they need to test 3.96 fully and issue 3.96.1 or something like that before they go for the big version 4.0.