hey all I was just rendering a song today and i had a question that has been confusing me for some time

When you pick the quality


there is 0 ---- 5 

and on the left is better

and the right is faster

if it was a slider for quality wouldn't the higher number mean better quality? this is super confusing....

p.s. I know i could just render both and see the difference,, but at 256kbps i dont think i could hear any difference, my question is one of technicality. I like knowing how things work (or at least are supposed to work)

If left is better then set it at 0 and forget about it

It's not a "slider for quality" - the slider is a "trade-off slider" between quality & speed.

haha. well as i mentioned... I can't just forget about it... I have no idea what is actually better. I am just trying to figure out what they meant by 0 quality being better than 5.... makes no sense to me. 

I have "forgotten about it" for years now. Just asking now 

Well try both extremes, making a note of how long each render takes, then compare audio quality afterwards.

lol. didn't you read my original post? this is purely a technical question, for curiosity's sake...

meaning, while my ears may make some judgement, I would still like to know HOW IT WORKS

its like having teachers that were like "don't worry about the ANSWER, just do what FEELS right." 

"but teacher... I want to know the actual answer pls... "

and then he's still like "no, don't be stupid, why on earth would you need an answer?" 

student retorts... "well obviously you don't know the answer"

and gets sent to the office. 

It corresponds to the lame -q parameter allowing you to specify the internal algorithm for analyzing and compressing the data (although not as flexible as the command line LAME encoder). A slower algorithm produces a better sounding file.

so instead of "quality" it should say "compression?"

The sound quality is better at 0, the faster compression at 5.

thanks for clearing it up. 

but the label on the slider should still say "encoding speed" or something more intuitive.