What is the best mp3 encoder?

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:26 am

I am looking for something to do 128kb and something to do 256/320kb. It does not ahve to be the same program. I use win gogo at the moment, and maybe I demand too much from a compressed format, but I easily hear a difference - even when using 320kb.
There is realy a heavy loss in tone, space and bass-controll.
What do you people use, and did you choose it over other solutions, or did you just pick something?

Post by **hubird** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 11:57 am

I'm very satisfied with Cleaner v.5
There is a Mac and Windows version, tho there is a v.6 out for mac now.
I always use the setting 'MP3 Hi-Quality 256k VBR', but it's quite possible that your ears are better than mine

Check http://www.discreet.com/products/cleaner/

_________________
Let There Be Music!

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2002-10-22 13:03 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 12:09 pm

800€+ for tool, that I will only use for mp3 encoding is a bit out of my priorty.

Chill69 · Post by **Chill69** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 12:35 pm

Why not try something like EAC (Exact Audio Copy)which is free, and LAME 3.92 for the encoder. I use EAC whenever I need to copy music from a CD, or outside sources. If you just need the encoder, just download LAME with a simple GUI (LAME is a DOS program) to run it under Windows. LAME supports many different rates, from 64K to 320K. Personally I'd tell you to stay away from a VBR (variable bit rate) and stay with a CBR (constant), as most external MP3 players on the market still have issues with VBR files. This is only important if you are playing your music outside of your computer.

For an alternative to MP3 with very good sound, the newer WMA from microsoft isn't all that bad, and even better is the new OggVorbis format (*.ogg) which is far above and beyond the limitations of low bitrate MP3 files. For music I release to the internet, I use LAME 3.92 @ 192Kbs CBR Stereo HIFI, for music at home that only I listen too, I use OggVorbis 1.0 @ 240KBS HIFI.

Chris

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 12:39 pm

Hi,

Maybe it's not what you're looking for, but the .ogg compression format is very good. It's IMHO better than MP3. Another advantage is that it's completely royalty free.

Check it out at:
http://www.vorbis.com/

cheers,
vincent

ernest@303.nu · Post by **ernest@303.nu** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:07 pm

I agree with Chill69: LAME isn't lame at all! The best mp3-encoder I've ever used, by far.
And i'f you're into tweaking parameters, you'll most definitely like LAME! There's an insane amount of parameters to be found if you use one of those advanced front-ends or enter the parameters from the DOS- or Linux-command line.
If that is your cup of tea, hit the search-engines and check out the LAME geekness

And a small correction to Chill69: LAME is not just a DOS-utility; the compiled (open source!) LAME code runs on many operating systems and chip architectures, including 16-bit DOS, Win32, various Apple flavours, Unix/Linux etc....

[ This Message was edited by: ernest@303.nu on 2002-10-22 18:09 ]

musquash · Post by **musquash** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 7:36 am

doesnt ogg use an equalizer to make the files sound "better"? (it raises the lows and highs)
maybe thats not always wanted

Retro · Post by **Retro** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 7:57 am

I've been hearing a lot about the Ogg Vorbis format lately, and when I saw this thread I thought I would try it out. All I can say is I wish I had tried it sooner! I've always hated MP3 compression, particularly in terms of the way it distorts the stereo image, but OGG does a far better job.

I haven't seen any evidence that OGG uses equalization in its encoding process, and it doesn't sound like it either. The highs are definitely more crisp than any MP3, and the bass is definitely more defined, but the overall result is simply more faithful to the original rather than exaggerated in any way.

To anyone here who hasn't tried Ogg Vorbis I recommend you give it a try. It would be great to adopt this as a standard for sharing files here on the Z.

My only question is, which .ogg player is the best? I tried Winamp and it sucked (which doesn't surprise me). It added loads of hiss to the files. Currently I'm using Zinf. It's simple but it sounds good.

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 2:10 pm

On 2002-10-23 08:36, musquash wrote:
doesnt ogg use an equalizer to make the files sound "better"? (it raises the lows and highs)
maybe thats not always wanted

I didn't know that, but as long as it is only used to compensate the loss of signal in these particular frequency bands, I don't mind.

Do you have any references about this, because I'm interested to know why/when/how they use this EQ-ing.

cheers,
vincent

visilia · Post by **visilia** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 2:14 pm

On 2002-10-23 08:57, Retro wrote:

My only question is, which .ogg player is the best? I tried Winamp and it sucked (which doesn't surprise me). It added loads of hiss to the files. Currently I'm using Zinf. It's simple but it sounds good.

I haven't compared all the different players, but I'm happy with FreeAmp myself.

Check out http://www.freeamp.org to download the software.

edit: I now see that Zinf is a variation of FreeAmp

cheers,
vincent

[ This Message was edited by: visilia on 2002-10-23 15:36 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 5:54 pm

I just want to join in and say, that I am realy impressed by .ogg too. To my ears, with the few tests I have done so far, it is far better than mp3. I didn't like mp3 even at 320kb/s (tried win-gogo for the coding), but with .ogg, I would say 128kb/s is ok for a lot of purposes.

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Thu Oct 24, 2002 7:48 pm

cdex is nice tool. i think that use lama by default - but you can set lama anyway.
on the radio where i work we use them with win98. cdex remember every job what you did. when you insert audio cd, cdex shows all changed track names and tracks what you already encoded to mp3.
this is nice feature specialy when computer use more people.
cdex need some older version of aspi so, on xp i use audio grabber (with lama).
somebody knows how to use cdex with new aspi on xp?

sandrob · Post by **sandrob** » Thu Oct 24, 2002 8:26 pm

i just found

cdex need this reg fix

i hope that this fix will not hurt something in system. anyway, you'll do this on your responsibility

musquash · Post by **musquash** » Sun Oct 27, 2002 1:58 pm

On 2002-10-23 18:54, Immanuel wrote:
I didn't like mp3 even at 320kb/s (tried win-gogo for the coding)

that must be a really bad encoder, normally 320kbs are enough to reach cd quality (to most ears even 256kbs are enough)

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Tue Oct 29, 2002 11:52 am

Could be a bad encoder. It was WinGoGo. All I have found out so far is, that it is supposed to be fast.
Also I wonder, how much the type of music has to say? Human ears are rather critical to human voices - and the voices I converted were not even compressed.