Mark Taylor
Wed, 04 Oct 2000 22:44:52 -0700
> > Hello... I've been lurking on this list for awhile now and I've > really started to become interested in some of the more advanced > aspects of lame such as the experimental modes and stuff. Basically > what I am trying to get out of lame is the highest possible sound > quality short of using 320kbps cbr. For me size isn't such a big > issue although the smaller the file the better.... I just figure if > I'm going to be using 320kbps I might as well just go lossless.. > Anyway, over the last week or so I have really started experimenting > with all the different switches and have been measuring their > effects on sound quality via frequency analysis graphs, waveform > subtraction, and most importantly listening tests. When I first > started encoding my mp3s for archival purposes I was using the > switches: -V1 -mj -b128 -q1 (thanks to RoelVdB) and was fairly happy > with the results. After performing the aforementioned tests > however, I have come up with what I consider significantly better > setting! ! > s as far as sound quality is concerned. These new settings are: -V1 > -mj -b128 -q2 -d -p -k -F --nspsytune --athlower -35 -X3. The main > reason I decided to switch to these settings is because they seem to > eliminate pretty much all of the artifacts from the different test > files I used it on, that the older settings were not able to. In > particular, the file where it seemed to make the biggest difference > was in fatboy.wav. With the original settings the file had very > audible and harsh sounding pre echos... The newer settings seem to > almost completely eliminate this problem and the file sounds nearly > identical to the original wav. One thing that I am wondering about > these settings is whether or not they are the optimum way to acheive > what I am trying to do. Basically what I mean is, are some of those > settings conflicting with eachother in some way or another? I don't > really know the internals of lame well enough to figure out for > myself... through my testing they seem to be ! ! > pretty much the best I could get but I know for example that > --nspsytune normally enables -X1, but -X3 sounds quite a bit better > although it is significantly slower... which isn't too big of a deal > to me. Also, I know that from earlier conversations --athlower > isn't perhaps the greatest way to control file size (which is what I > am using it for)... however without it the files average 270kbps or > more usually which is a bit too big... using --athlower they come > down to around 230kbps average, although I have had files which > reached all the way up to 290kbps. It also seems that these > particular settings allow a larger bitrate range (ive seen from ~150 > to ~290kbps), while the older settings seemed limited to around ~170 > to ~230kbps.. I plan on posting some information about all of the > tests and stuff that I have done on a website soon.. I would like to > hear some opinions on these settings and my findings. Oh... and > about that possible bug... when using these settings, ocassion! ! > aly (about 1 in 10 times or a bit less) while encoding lame will > start giving an error saying: > > ERROR: MAX_HEADER_BUF too small in bitstream.c > > It repeats this over and over until it crashes. It only seems to > happen with these particular settings though. Maybe someone can > look into this and see if they find something... it would be nice > not to have it crash. Well thats about it for now... if someone > would like more information just email me. > > Dibrom > > > Get your FREE Email and Voicemail at Lycos Communications at > http://comm.lycos.com > -- > MP3 ENCODER mailing list ( http://geek.rcc.se/mp3encoder/ ) > -- MP3 ENCODER mailing list ( http://geek.rcc.se/mp3encoder/ )