[LAU] What is the best MP3 encoder?

[Peder Hedlund]

Quoting "Jostein Chr. Andersen" <jostein at vait.se>:

> On 04/02/2013 09:31 AM, Peder Hedlund wrote:
> ...
>> You really should try doing one and check if you *really* can hear the
>> difference between the original wav and an mp3 produced by, say, "lame
>> -V4" ( which would be ~160kbps) or if it's just your mind fooling you
>> into thinking you can. Never underestimate the power of belief :)
>
> Are you basically saying that it's no need for lossless formats?  ;-)

For archiving you should obviously use lossless but for listening I'd  
say it's highly debatable (unless you can prove that you can hear the  
difference in an ABX test).

> All respect for HydrogenAudio, but I can't think about other's rules
> when I just have to make a MP3 file without esses or tones that's
> missing, then I just have to do the mix better and somehow compensate a
> little bit. MP3 artifacts and some quality loss are well known issues
> and should not create to much debate.

You really should try doing an ABX and check out if you really can  
hear those esses and/or missing tones. Here's how you do it using  
foobar2000 and the ABX component :  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt7GyFW4hOI

I think a lot of the bad rep the MP3 format got was due to the many  
crappy encoders from its early days. Today, using lame, the average  
listener shouldn't be able to tell the difference between the original  
and a lame -V5 (~128kbps) file.

Lame does have problems with certain types of samples, and good  
problem samples are listed on http://lame.sourceforge.net/quality.php,  
but unless you have really good ears and/or happen do have similar  
passages in your files -V4 or lower should be transparent.
As said by others lame or the mp3 format seems to add a bit of gain to  
the file so you should avoid having the sources really close to 0dB to  
minimize the risk of clipping.

  - Peder