All Im saying is, I dont believe any material (unless its something like silence or really basic material like a drone) can still sound as good as the same material with the maximum amount of bitrate given to it.

With all due respect, I think you need to understand how the encoding process works.

Iceboy, I don't see a problem at all with using -b 320 in LAME if it's for your own personal use, is never going over a network, and you don't care about the extra space it takes up. All of which you've stated. LAME's VBR is meant to be as efficient as possible in the way it provides high quality at compressed file sizes.

Although, to be honest, your argument of "I dont believe in giving every frame anything less than the maximum for the best sound reproduction" could very well be used to justify keeping uncompressed WAVs around (or encoding into the lossless FLAC format). After all, MP3 is lossy. Don't you want the maximum quality for every moment of your audio? And there's certainly nothing more maximum than the exact original file! (Or one that outputs to exactly the same, in the case of FLAC.)

The point is that MP3, at any bitrate, is meant to reduce the size of audio files. The goal of high quality VBR modes, notably the old --alt-preset standard and newer -V 2 --vbr-new, is to use just enough bits to attain audio that is audibly no different from the original. Admittedly, this is only a goal, and the implementation is based on the very complex human hearing model and can never be quite perfect. However, with that disclaimer out of the way, a huge majority of folks will never hear any difference between such VBR modes and 320Kbps CBR. Many people actually have a very difficult time hearing any difference between files just over 128Kbps and the original audio, when challenged to a scientific double-blind listening test. Seeing the 320, much larger than 128 or 160 or 192, has a strong psychological effect that can cause you to think it sounds better when that is not actually the case.

But, as I said, it's your choice to make. Encoding in 320Kbps isn't a sin, maybe just a bit wasteful, but that's all.

Bandwidth and disk space are preciously limited resources, guys!

[/1999]

[/ozzie internets]

Until a few months ago, I was using lossless encoding for my CD singles. Then I realised how much space it was eating up, and re-encoded them as 320k MP3s. I dont mind using some hard disc space, but there is a line I draw!I so no point keeping lossless ones, because comparinf the 320k and lossless files it was hard to find any real differences in quality.

Thank you. That just goes to show why I tend to (but not always) opt for 320k.

As for psychological effects, etc. I know all about that. But I have fairly good hearing and I can definitely hear differences at 128k from the original WAV.

And thanks for being so fair! Until now, everyones slagged me off for using 320k. You're the first person to say "do what you want." So thanks man.

Glib Argument GET!

Am I missing something?:confused:

Cal gets that a lot, don't worry about it.

Bandwidth -- not so much, but hard drives aren't yet cheap enough that everyone could afford a 500 GB HDD just for complete discographies of ten bands. Maybe in a few years.