MP3 Pro codec demo by Thomson to be released tomorrow!

[impact]

Yeah, Lame 256kbit looks definitely better.

[Greebe]

If it's not the same source material, then it's invalid.

[Indiana]

Greebe, just look at the samples of a sweep-sound encoded with Fraunhofer, XING, Blade and Lame codec at the site metioned above. It should convince you...

Basicly there I found some kind of proof of what I was finding when comparing the Fraunhofer encodings to ones with the newer Lame codec in my own hearing-tests. Especially if you're sensitive to artifacts in the high frequency-band you will take lame over Fraunhofer any time.

EDIT: Impact you can kinda prove this as well, just dl the newest lame and do an 256kbps encoding, then we can be sure that it actually IS the same song.
But from my experiences I'd bet that even lame 192kbps would beat the Fraunhofer encoding for the >16KHz frequecies.
Now, the only thing one could start an argument is on how important those are for the subjective impression of sound quality as percepted by the average individual....

EDIT2: maybe I'm hearing-impaired as the only one in the c't tests that nearly always chose the real CD over the mp3, but it's just that I really hate those typical mp3 aliasing/trashing the high-frequency-band and I think I can spot it in a few seconds in most cases even if it's otherwise a good-quality encoding - as always YMMV (and esp. with things like sound quality where the individual sound-perception comes to a major factor).

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 20 June 2001).]

[Greebe]

But when comparing green apples to red ones they never taste the same. I'm not questioning Lame is better but the results shown must from the same source or the results will always be flawed.

[dancray]

how do I get Lame codec to run in Cooledit pro...I try to use it in Audiograbber but it only encodes at 128...is there a way to install Lame.dll in my windows 98 audio codecs section in multimedia?

[Liquid Snake]

Well, I didn't have a copy of the Matrix Soundtrack handy...

[Indiana]

Dancray, have you tried copying the lameenc.dll (the name might be a bit variable between different compiles) to windows/system or winnt/system32?

[dancray]

yes I have but it does not show up in the internal codec selection when I try to "save as" in Cooledit pro...just defaults to the fhg mp3 codec. maybe a software lock or something.

[impact]

I used razorlame as the lame frontend and here are the results...

192kbps lame


256kbps lame


At 192 kbps it's worse but at 256kbps it's better than the Frauenhofer codec.

[This message has been edited by impact (edited 23 June 2001).]

[xortam]

Lame definitely looks better ... good accuracy up to 17K now and then starts dropping out, but not as bad as the other codecs. Are there variants of the Lame codec that differ in quality?

[DentyCracker]

There are daily builds, so one should state exactly which one (s)he uses

[Indiana]

Dancray, I just checked and noticed that the newest dll is shown here in e.g. EAC as compression codec, but not in VirtualDub. So I guess it depends on the used program if it sees the codec or not - I also tried some registry entries but they didn't help.
But I have an older version of the lame mp3-codec that is shown by VirtualDub as well, so there's a chance that this one can also be used with CoolEdit. But since it is an older version it'll have a bit worse quality. If you want it I can send you the file.

Xortam, there are different compiles of lame as application and/or codec by different people (one optimized for MMX, one for 3DNow!,...), if the coder didn't do anything stupid, they should give the same quality as long as they're based on the same build of the sourcecode. You can even dl the newest source and do a compile yourself if you want.
But of course there are differences in the quality in the lame versions, everything above 3.80 should be OK (they're at 3.89 at the moment, I think). Lame is constantly under development for better speed and quality (better psychoacoustics, better VBR-handling, better joint-stereo code,...) so you're usually best off to take the newest one.

[This message has been edited by Indiana (edited 23 June 2001).]

[xortam]

Thanks Indiana ... so is Lame open-source then? i.e. is any developer invited to contribute and who (if anyone) controls the source?

[dancray]

thanks indi, I'll live without out for now

[Indiana]

Lame source-code is fully under GPL. For more information look at http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3 .
This page looks a bit outdated at first sight, go to the history page for newer builds.