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[davidkos]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking to take my existing WAV files and convert them into an MP3 format.  I'm looking for the best MP3 sound quality possible and plan on coverting at 320 CBR using the LAME converter using MC 12.  Would this setting provide me with the best quality MP3 files?  Thanks in advance for your input.

Best Regards,

Elite DJ

[rjm]

If you ask 10 people you will get 10 different answers. Here is my opinion based on a lot of testing and reading...

First the bit rate...

My ears cannot hear the difference between 128 kbps mp3 and the original cd (even with good quality headphones). However, many people I trust say they can hear a quality difference until you get to about 160 kbps. So to be safe I use 192 kbps.

Next the codec...

Consensus seems to be that Lame is the best mp3 codec.

Finally, variable vs. constant bit rate...

Most people think that VBR is the best. This makes logical sense to me because different passages of music have different content, and therefore it makes sense to use VBR which proportions the bit rate according to the need of the music content.

So in summary, I use Lame -V 2 --vbr-new for music.

As an aside, I use Lame -V 8 --vbr-new for mono audiobooks. This makes the books nice and compact and quality is plenty good enough for spoken word audio.

One more point, if you are ripping from cd, always use secure mode. When you hear clicks and pops in rips it is usually caused by a somewhat defective cd that was not ripped with secure mode.

[Matt]

Lossless?

[rjm]

If you can't hear the difference, why waste the space on lossless?

And mp3 works with everything on the planet, thus avoiding problems with players that do not support FLAC et. al.

I know lots of people disagree with me.

[jgreen]

Yeah, count me in on that one. 

First of all, the only player you need is the only one that supports FLAC, so let's not have any nonsense on that score.  Secondly, if you don't need the hard drive space for something crucial like saving the planet, why would you waste the bother to convert to today's favorite flavor of mp3?  Tomorrow there'll be a new one, and then you'll have to reconvert from lossless--if you still have it.

[modelmaker]

The highest quality mp3 bitrate is 256/vbr, however 192/vbr is acceptable if you have a storage issue. 95% of my 43k rock/contemporary tracks are 256/vbr and occupy about 400 gigs of HD space.

If you're going to use mp3, then I recommend doing so at the highest quality level as you will loose more and more data the lower the bit rate is and you can't get it back, (that's why they call it "lossy"). You can always down-convert for uploading to other devices, (portables).

My older ex-audiophile ears find 256/vbr a more than acceptable compromise for listening to rock and other contemporary music. For classical and jazz, I use lossless .ape to save space but still get uncompromised sound.  

I have no need to use any other players as MC does it all for me, but some of my friends use my set up and library to load their portables. They love the simplicity and the abillity to convert to any bitrate and/format in MC with just a couple of clicks.

[modelmaker]

Yeah, count me in on that one. 

First of all, the only player you need is the only one that supports FLAC, so let's not have any nonsense on that score.  Secondly, if you don't need the hard drive space for something crucial like saving the planet, why would you waste the bother to convert to today's favorite flavor of mp3?  Tomorrow there'll be a new one, and then you'll have to reconvert from lossless--if you still have it.

There are undoubtably better formats than mp3, but that wasn't the question, so there's no need to start the format wars all over again here. Mp3 is the most wide spread format and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. Not everyone has that insatiable need to get the newest and latest every 5 minutes, some people are actually happy to just use what works.

[KingSparta]

My ears cannot hear the difference between 128 kbps mp3 and the original cd

I can't hear the difference in 32kbps and lossless

[MusicHawk]

I do lots of digitizing of vinyl LPs, and I A-B compare the original with the digital through my JBL L100 studio monitors. After lots of experiments, I settled on .mp3, -V 0 --vbr-new, what MC calls "Extreme", for my main library. Though it's "lossy", to me the result sounds identical to the original for 99% of the recordings.

I tried .flac because lossless *should* be best, but I couldn't hear any difference compared with "extreme" .mp3 -- and the files were MUCH larger, and I'm already at more than 60 thousand tracks with a thousand albums to go! (I use .flac now and then when .mp3 doesn't sound quite right.)

I down-convert for iPod to .mp3 High Quality Portable.

I use Extreme because with many tracks I dislike the sound of less than 256kbs. There can also be degradation or shifting of stereo imaging. I find 128kpbs to be seriously harsh, with unnatural and unfaithful to the original peaks and valleys in frequency response, and sometimes an annoying "edge" that sounds like a worn needle tracking a beat up 45. Just my opinion.

Speaking of A-B comparision, I have vinyl and CD copies of many recordings and often the CD sounds harsher. Not always, but often enough to notice. Sometimes the CD sounds better, usually due to being a cleaner medium, not higher quality recording, usually due to a good condition LP pressed on inferior vinyl. Some record labels were notorious for this (Chess/Argo/Cadet and others). Other labels drove the cutting head with too much amplitude (Columbia in 70s) so there's cross-track distortion (one LP track has so much groove side-to-side movement that the vinyl is pushed into the adjacent track -- listen for "pre-echo" where some sound is in the silent groove before the song really starts).

[johnnyboy]

As far as I'm aware - the best quality to use for mp3's is the built in alt-preset-extreme or whatever it is.
Thats the best quality mp3 you can get and to be honest, for the price these days - I'd recommend using that as a 500Gb HD isn't going to kill anyone and would be able to hold nearly all your music.

[lalittle]

There are undoubtably better formats than mp3, but that wasn't the question, so there's no need to start the format wars all over again here. Mp3 is the most wide spread format and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon.

That's bascially my thinking as well.  Mp3 is easily the most widely supported format, and it's so firmly ingrained into the paradigm at this point that it will likely continue to be supported for quite some time.

On the subject of quality, I used to pain over this until I realized that drives (including those in handhelds) were getting so big that the space savings didn't really matter (to me) anymore.  I therefore finally just went ahead with the highest quality LAME VBR setting -- i.e. the "Extreme" setting in the MC options.  LAME is widely recognized as the best codec, and the high quality VBR setting is actually considered by some to produce "better" results than the 320 CBR setting.  I don't have any experience with this, but what I WILL say is that LAME VBR 256 (i.e. MC's "Extreme") will be VERY close to the original, and will most likely be TOTALLY indistinguishable from the original to most people even on higher end systems.

Note that I only rip CD's that I buy, so I always have the original CD if I want to listen to the "lossless" version.

Larry

[rjm]

I'm always impressed by the quality of knowledge on this forum. Sounds like if I ever decide to expand my library beyond the complete works of AC/DC I should consider a higher bit rate...

Actually space is an issue for me. I have 5 drives in my system and can't fit anymore. Plus I believe in triple backups so every GB of music requires 3 GB of drives. I'm thankful in a way that my ears are not that sensitive.

[hit_ny]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking to take my existing WAV files and convert them into an MP3 format.  I'm looking for the best MP3 sound quality possible and plan on coverting at 320 CBR using the LAME converter using MC 12.  Would this setting provide me with the best quality MP3 files?  Thanks in advance for your input.

and your answer is

- the best quality to use for mp3's is the built in alt-preset-extreme or whatever it is.

The reason to use VBR is you get the extra space savings for very little perceptible difference with 320 cbr. Personally i use lame APS (V2)  or alt-preset-standard.

Extreme is for the 5% of cases where you can actually tell the difference.

Some friends recently did a ABX test for wav vs lame (alt-preset-extreme or V0)

...they said if you strained a lot and knew the music well you could tell the difference, and that too only in certain sections. But it wasn't easy and took effort. These guys were using decent headphones as well an above avg sound system with soundcard and have normal earing.

[johnnyboy]

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame#Best_quality:_.22archiving.22

[lalittle]

Some friends recently did a ABX test for wav vs lame (alt-preset-extreme or V0)

...they said if you strained a lot and knew the music well you could tell the difference, and that too only in certain sections. But it wasn't easy and took effort. These guys were using decent headphones as well an above avg sound system with soundcard and have normal earing.

Was it a true blind test -- i.e. was it carefully controlled by a third party to ensure that the listenners truly had NO idea what they were listenning to until AFTER the test was over?  In my experience, most people who conduct these sort of tests are actually aware of what they're listenning to, and they rely on their own objectivity in determining the results.  This, of course, completely invalidates the results.

Larry

[hit_ny]

They alternated as tester & subject, using an ABX program but they were familiar with the music being tested.

Does that bit matter ?

[lalittle]

They alternated as tester & subject, using an ABX program but they were familiar with the music being tested.

Does that bit matter ?

It's actually helpful to test both familiar AND unfamiliar music.

The problem is that a lot of people really don't "want" to do accurate tests in this regard.  What they really "want" to do is confirm to themselves that they can tell the difference between compressed and lossless, and this desire will sometimes sabotage truly accurate results.  I'm certainly NOT saying that your friends did this -- I'm simply saying that it's a common phenomenon.

Larry

[hit_ny]

What they really "want" to do is confirm to themselves that they can tell the difference between compressed and lossless, and this desire will sometimes sabotage truly accurate results.

I'd think there was a fair amt of this for sure, they are FLAC users and wanted to know if there was a difference.

To my mind the only way they managed to tell the diff albeit with effort was because there were familair with the music, if they were not, heh, i think the results 'may' have been inconclusive. It would have been painfully hard to spot the diff. I'm sure you could pick music that makes compressesed artifiacts stand out little more but they were not aware of this.

Which has to be good news for buying unknown music on the web, so long as its sufficiently highly encoded, you won't be any the wiser

[ubernode54]

If you're wanting to convert to mp3 to save disk space, lossless may not be the way to go.

I've been very happy with lame and -alt preset extreme with a minimum bitrate of 128. I listen to a lot of electronic music that has blips and bleeps and what-nots, so the extreme seems to capture all the high-frequency noise very well. At least it sound pretty darned good on everything I've played 'em on (iPod, home & car stereo, THX pc speakers...)

[JimH]

If you're wanting to convert to mp3 to save disk space, lossless may not be the way to go.

Hard disk prices are now under 30 cents (U.S.) a GB.  You can store around 3 CD's per GB in lossless format.  At 10 cents a CD, there's no longer any reason to use lossy formats like MP3 unless you have thousands of CD's to rip.

MC12 gives you the ability to store your music as lossless, but convert on the fly to MP3 or other lossy formats when you sync to a device or play to a UPnP media receiver.  It can even cache the MP3's to save time the next time you sync.

[Alex B]

The OP has not replied yet, but a short answer is definitely yes. The CBR 320 kbps setting in MC12 is designed to give the best possible quality on average by the encoder developers. No other setting combination is known to be better. The LAME encoder provides some tweaking options, but these do not generally make the results better. Also, as said, a high bitrate VBR setting is almost as good and saves disk space.

The other suggested options are very good, but more information would be needed before recommending something. For example, we don't know if the purpose is to convert only some specific files or a complete audio library. Also, we have no idea if the OP is going to delete the source wave files or if the encoded files are intended to be used besides the wave files.

[tombert]

Maybe thats from interest:
You need not to have "super ears" when you use dolby playback which splits up music in front, rear and bass (5.1). When coding mp3 with only 128 there is absolutely noise in the rear speakers. It starts to get better when using 160 and I can't tell the difference when using 192.
Considering that space doesnt matter on my side and I much care about quality I ripped 240. Later I switched to ogg - but thats a different story - with that one I've got perfect theater sound.

[glynor]

Just one little niggle in the previous statements...

--preset fast extreme is not == CBR 320.  That preset is VBR -V0 (highest quality VBR available).  It is most certainly good enough for almost any use, and I agree as well, that is what I use.  Anything "higher-quality" and you might as well just use FLAC or APE.

--preset insane is CBR 320 in LAME.

No one came out and said it that way above, but it might have left the impression.

[benn600]

I agree with Jim.

there's no longer any reason to use lossy formats like MP3 unless you have thousands of CD's to rip.

Even if it requires a bit of an outpouring of cash now (oooo, maybe a hundred bucks extra) imagine hard drive prices get cut in half again.  I see 500GB drives for right around $100 on a good day.  So that's 1,500 CDs!  Get a second for backup (absolute must) and you're essentially at $200 for almost everyone's collection!  I've got around 1,140 CDs @ 369GB.  0.324GB per CD average.

I'm very pleased I chose FLAC because I no longer have those burdening thoughts: "Is it time to re-rip at a higher bitrate?"  I'm DONE!  And I even ripped them all at q8.  So it would be a bit larger at a lower quality (or compression ratio).

[johnnyboy]

I agree with Jim.

Even if it requires a bit of an outpouring of cash now (oooo, maybe a hundred bucks extra) imagine hard drive prices get cut in half again.  I see 500GB drives for right around $100 on a good day.  So that's 1,500 CDs!  Get a second for backup (absolute must) and you're essentially at $200 for almost everyone's collection!  I've got around 1,140 CDs @ 369GB.  0.324GB per CD average.

I'm very pleased I chose FLAC because I no longer have those burdening thoughts: "Is it time to re-rip at a higher bitrate?"  I'm DONE!  And I even ripped them all at q8.  So it would be a bit larger at a lower quality (or compression ratio).

I see no reason to use lossless.
I rip all of mine to mp3 with alt-preset-extreme and I cant see myself ever needing higher quality and it saves me having to spend any money on hard drives irrelivant of how cheap they are getting

Until one of you kind gents buys me some $x thousand's system, I wont be noticing any difference!

[JONCAT]

No reason to use lossless??

MP3 is still a LOSSY format.

Archive with LOSSLESS
Portable use LOSSY

...that's the creed I listen by....

I see 80$ brand new 500GB drives on the Egg.

"There are undoubtably better formats than mp3"

- not so sure about this one. Lot of documentation out there discussing little difference in any lossy codec more or less adversly affecting the audio spectrum than another. And listening to various formats I don't hear major differences, furthermore MP3 seems like the most compatible with hardware/web by far.

DC

[johnnyboy]

Might be a lossy format but the fact that its technically inferior doesn't make it noticably inferior to your average (ie ME!!) user.
Play me an mp3 encoded at extreme quality and ripped with MC or EAC and play me the lossless one, I wont be able to tell you which is which under my normal listening conditions (I dont sit around just listening to music - its always a banground thing as I do something else).

They might be $80 in the US but they're not that cheap anywhere else in the world!
I'd rather save that extra space to use for Ripped DVD's where I NEED the space to save them and trust me, they eat it fast enough!

[MadJewDisaster]

the answer is simple

Encoder Lame  set to APX  [ Alternative Preset Extreme ] who is now

-V 0 --vbr-new

Second is APS  [ Alternative Preset Standart ] who is now

-V 2 --vbr-new

CBBR 320 IS NOT the best
For one , read:
"With the exception of a few situations, quality is rarely better than the highest VBR profiles described below"

And if there is not 320 kbps to be saved , encoder does 'make' a 320 kbps of WHAT?
Music and WHAT?

The answer is easy if you plug computer to stereo system and play loud
You feel back to Windows 98 and $10 a month at Emusic with Xing 128 kbps MP3

Of cause this problem does not happen on each cd and all music
But if you know than -V 0 --vbr-new  is as best as 320 , and you sure than VRB will never make a 320 bitrate with 'air'
Why running into probs one day with 320

I ask you

[Alex B]

The OP asked literally which option provides the best audio quality, not which is the most sensible option.

Theoretically it is the CBR 320 setting (= --preset insane or -b 320). VBR Extreme (= -V 0 --vbr-new or --preset fast extreme) comes close, but sometimes the difference is audible. Want some proof? I have been able to hear "-V 0 problems" a few times and reported about some of them at Hydrogen Audio. Here are the results of my latest ABX test using LAME 3.98b6 @ -V 0.

Even 320 kbps CBR is not perfect. It has audible problems with some samples.

A different matter is what setting is good enough if MP3 format is a necessity. For me it is -V 0 despite the few known problem samples. For some other users -V 0 is overkill and they prefer -V 2 or even lower.

[MadJewDisaster]

The OP asked literally which option provides the best audio quality, not which is the most sensible option.
You right
And i gave him answer  =  -V0
Even if few probs as you noticed
Not yet found one on my side
But stopped many times CBR 320 , cause was something in the sound who was, may i say,almost unbearable.

I use -V0 as well and do not bother about room on my player
Like most people - even the ones with a 80G player- i rarely use to travel for more than one hour, so a 2G with -V0 MP3 on it is enought for a month