I need to know what is the best version of EAC and Lame to use. Currently I am using V0.95 pre beta 5 of EAC and use the Lame encoder given on the Chrs Myden guide on this site. The guys over at Ubernet suggest V0.9 beta 4 and Lame 3.90.3 .Should I go by what they say and use their versions of EAC and Lame or should I kepp my current EAC and Lame. Help is needed. Thanks in advance. -Weaz- p.s. By the way I want to create high quality VBR MP3 rips.
Hi Weaz, I use LAME 3.96.1 From old-favourite 3.93.1 on, versions 3.95 and 3.96 were extremely SLOW encoding at Q=0. v 3.96.1 http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_software/audio_encoders/lame_mp3_encoder.cfm works great for me. Some have 'issues' with it (notably, Doom9 hosts an earlier version on his website) http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software.htm but VBR MP3s with a generous bitrate, ie. 128(min) 256 or 320 (max) are far beyond the tranparency threshold anyway, and will sound excellent :^) I'm sorry but I encode 1200MB-1400MB WAVs to ~150MB MP3s, and for me 3.95.1 is just TOO SLOW at Q=0 ;^( Supposedly this is the 'best' LAME codec though; it is said to make very careful precise calculations @ Q=0, so if you have a killer Pentium 3200 or whatever and are encoding only songs, WTF give 3.95.1 a try... Hope this is helpful, Regards
3.96.1 is best for me (I cannot hear the difference) and it takes 7 minutes instead of 70 minutes to encode a 1.4GB WAV file @ Q=0. If you require very small MP3 files, and/or 1) have fast PC 2) encode only songs (how long can it take to encode only 50MB?) then no, I would recommend 3.95.1 for very highest possible quality @ Q=0. Give 3.95.1 a try. If you are happy, then there you go :^) If you give 3.96.1 a try, you will find it is quicker. At very low bitrates this might not be the most important thing though - but see if you can hear any difference with the newest faster codec. Testing @ 128Mb/s CBR apparently was unfavourable with the new 3.96.1, (hence Doom9 doesn't host it) but this is tough test and very low bitrate; nobody encodes like that anymore anyway. Actually, the preferred codec in that CBR test was good ol' 3.93.1 (and it's fast too) so I dunno what to tell you... L8R
I used Ubernets version and the current version and i encoded the same song. ubernets version encoded it at vbr and the filesize is 6,422 KB and the current version was also encoded at vbr and has a filesize of 6,328 KB. to be honest i don;t notice any difference in sound between the two files. im gona keep both installed as there on different hard drives. i think i'll stick with the latest version of EAC to rip my music and use Ubernets version to rip my pain in the ass copy protected cd's if i can ever get it to work. if someone can convince me or has proof of why i shouldnt use the current version then go ahead and explain your reasons. -Weaz-
Did some research and version 3.90.3 is excellent and has had the most tests performed on it. while other versions might be newer they have had little testing done and may or may not be the best.
