LAME encoder bit rate?

I like 320 all day - it is worth the file being 9mb or so-

Lance

I use 320 for all Lame encoding.  Even thought I find it hard or almost impossible to tell the difference between 256 and 320, anything less is usually noticeable so I just keep it set to 320.

Jonbouy

Jind


I use 320 for all Lame encoding.  Even thought I find it hard or almost impossible to tell the difference between 256 and 320, anything less is usually noticeable so I just keep it set to 320.

Regardless of the destination requirement?

I'm curious to find out if there is some benefit of doing that if the destination is a 128kbs streaming site, I haven't found that to be the case but I'd be interested to learn of something I hadn't considered.

While I'm unsure of the technicalities, if given the option to upload at the highest possible bit rate even if the destination is just going to covert it for use, doesn't it seem logical to choose the highest bit rate possible.  I suppose if you know what a site uses for encoding you could tailor your conversion to match theirs, but if not, I'd provide them with the best possible medium to down convert - if WAV is an option go with that, if MP3 I'd rather provide them the highest possible encode even if they plan to drop down the bit rate for steaming.  As I said, it just seems somewhat logical to me.  I'm sure more knowledgeable types will correct my misgivings if I'm mistaken and I welcome it.

Different requirements for different applications. 

If I'm transferring a work in progress to my MP3 player to evaluate offsite, it'll be 320kb/s. Can I tell the difference between 256 and 320? Hell, no. But filesize doesn't matter, so what the heck.

If I'm sending a part for a song via email, so the mixer can try it and see if it fits the song, I'll send it at 192Kb/s to reduce the file size.

If I'm uploading to SoundClick, I know they're going to re-encode it to 128kb/s and degrade the sound (even if I send it to them at 128kb/s!). Experimentation has shown that the higher the quality I send them, the less degradation there is when they re-encode it. But they have a 10MB file size limit, so I have to send them the highest bitrate that still comes in under 10MB. That might be 192Kb/s or it might be 320kb/s, depending on the length of the song.

Then you've got variable bit rate as another possibility. With VBR each block can be encoded at a different bitrate. This can improve fidelity in sections that have a lot of high-frequency content while reducing the average bitrate and overall file size. For example, I have a longish song (~7 minutes) that will only compact to under SoundClick's 10MB size limit by using VBR. To do it with constant bitrate (CBR) I'd have to drop down to 128kb/s, which is unacceptable. With VBR, the bitrate will vary between 150 and 240 kb/s. That's not as big a compromise as it may seem.

What follows is just my opinion: 192Kb/s is the minimum acceptable rate, 224kb/s is good enough for emailing to friends and sending to SoundClick, 256 kb/s is indistinguishable from a CD (check the bit rates of songs you've bought online - most are 256; most music distributed to radio stations is equivalent to 256), and 320kb/s is an indulgence for when file size and file transfer times are irrelevant.