I found the analysis section on this site http://www.r3mix.net/ to be quite informative.

The bottom line is:
"Radium FhG Codec in HQ & Stereo, Newer FhG encoder found in MM and Nero in "lowest quality" & Stereo and Lame vbr JS or Lame 256 cbr JS all produce sufficient quality for archiving.
LAME >= 3.80 -b256 -ms -h 256kbit/s (Joint) Stereo is distinctly the most accurate mp3 encoder (Best archiving for cbr)
LAME >= 3.83 -V1 -b128 -mj -h VBR is by far the best overall (highest quality/size ratio) archival mp3 encoder "

The site seems be quite pro LAME, but that may be well justified.

I think I'll have a more serious play with LAME.

...Take a glance at this comparison by Arstechnica as well if you haven't already; it's fairly informative..
-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units

I saw the comparison on r3mix.net as well. Based on the analyses there I am using their recommended VBR setting for LAME, which gets me somewhere between 150-200kbps depending on the music... I'm quite pleased with the results I'm getting... I don't have an EMPEG yet but I am going to be taking one of those PJB-100's with me on a 3-week trip. I'll have more than enough room, even at my high-rate encoder settings, to keep me amused...

The arstechnica article uses LAME 3.61 or something like that; I'm using 3.83 with a 3.84 patch. From checking out the history file it seems like there has been significant quality improvement since 3.61, so I'd definintely consider LAME again if you blew it off before.

Michael

Beware - the last I heard of the PJB-100 from the people who designed it was that it didn't do VBR, and the downloader checked all the frames in a file to ensure that it wasn't VBR. The decoder they use on the DSP doesn't like changing bitrates in a file :(

Hugo

According to the PJB web site, VBR is now supported.

Is there a easy to use front end that uses LAME-similar to audiocatalyst? Im too lazy to encode all of my files one by one with a command line.
Thanks,
Term

Is there a easy to use front end that uses LAME-similar to audiocatalyst? Im too lazy to encode all of my files one by one with a command line.

I actually wrote a front-end for the Fraunhofer command-line encoders that should work perfectly with any command-line encoder like LAME. I never tried adding a default command set for LAME (I never used LAME before), but you should be able to add whatever commands you need and it'll save it in its config file.

Of course, I'm not the only guy who wrote a cheap-ass front end for an encoder, there are a boatload of 'em out there. But if you wanna try mine, it's at my home page. It's called Jack the Ripper. Lemme know if you like it.

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, it was in something like November last year that I talked to them...

Hugo

I use mp3c with cdparanoia and now LAME. It's very configurable, and has cddb support.

I have also heard good things about grip.

Of course all this assumes that you're running linux?

I use krabber. It supports most every encoder for linux.

-Waiting to replace the hole in my truck with a Mark2

Thanks, the program works great. EAC also works with lame too.

At this point this thread belongs in ICE, but I received the Personal JukeBox yesterday and loaded a bunch of my MP3s on it. It sounds just fine, even the VBR files. However, neither the bitrate indicator nor the time indicator on the screen are programmed to recognize VBR properly. As far as I'm concerned, that's no big deal..