From: "Gary Britt" 

OK, thanks for adding your input.

Gary

"Don Hills"  wrote in message
news:faKJEtgaXyiC092yn{at}attglobal.net...
> In article , "Gary Britt"
 wrote:
> >Thanks, I'll take a look at CDex.
>
> Listen very carefully, I will say this only once...
>
> Don't use CBR (Constant Bit Rate) encoding. At low rates you get the nasty
> Procrustean effects, at high rates you waste space to no advantage much of
> the time.
>
> Instead, use VBR (Variable Bit Rate). Instead of cutting the quality to
fit
> the bitrate, VBR adjusts the bitrate between the 32Kb and 320Kb limits to
> maintain a given quality level.
>
> Pick an encoder that does VBR (I use LAME), and audition the various
quality
> settings. For my purposes, I picked LAME's "quality level 2"
setting. The
> resulting files are about 5 to 10 percent larger than 128Kb CBR, but it is
> instructive to play them with an MP3 player (or external utility) that
> displays the instantaneous bitrate in real time. Apart from the number of
> times per second it hits 320Kb, the most interesting part for me is what
> causes it to peak. The bit rate peaks most often on what I consider quite
> soft transients, not on massive hits or overall loudness. To understand
how
> this can happen, consider a solo piano, where there is no surrounding
> information to mask the beginning of each note so it must be encoded at
the
> maximum bitrate. Much of a piano's sound character is embodied in the
> transient created as the hammer strikes the string, and it will be lost at
> too low a bitrate.
>
> --
> Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
> "New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager,
>  preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
>     -- Advertisement on the box for Microsoft Windows 2.11 for 286

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