VBR MP3's

I'm recently been re-encoding some of my CD's with VBR instead of 192Kbps and found that the file size increase is very small in comparison to the quality that you gain from it. The question is, what difference does it make to what minimum bit rate you choose when encoding stuff. I've currently got it set at min -> 32kbps max -> 320kbps and most of the files seem to hover around 192 but occasionally flicker up to 256 and 320 and silence goes down to 32kbps. Surely having the minimum set right down low is the best, but then why give the option about specifying a minimum. Does increasing the minimum create a better final result ?

Any ideas, preferences. I don't wanna redo my whole collection if I end up with an inferior result at the end.

Hey man, VBR is supposed to do the worrying for you, if you don't trust it then you should use a constant bitrate of 256kbps. The VBR implementation in LAME is supposed to be pretty good though.

There's a lot of talk about mp3 encoding with LAME over at hydrogenaudio.org, you might want to read up on it there.

I usually encode most of my stuff at 256kb but 198kb is usually good enough quality I find.

pete, rip a few albums (albums that you know very well) with EAC and encode with LAME at different VBR-settings.

try 32-256 and 192-256, for example, and listen closely. if you notice difference in quality, go with the 192-256 setting. simple as that.

you shouldn't rely on other people for this, there are no benchmarks, no objective rules. just listen and make your own decision.

good advice man. yeah, even with my akg's I can't tell the difference between 192->320 and 32->320. Like I said, most of my mp3's seem to be locked around 192 with some flickerings of higher bitrates when encoding with a VBR LAME encoded mp3.

Interestingly a lot of drone stuff (Deathprod and Hafler Trio) which I previously used to encode at 256kbps seems to get encoded as pretty much solid 192kbps so I'm saving quite a lot hard disk space even with supposidly higher quality files.