lame: less compression, better quality

[deadpoirotsketch]

Monkey's audio is great for my long term archiving but for my digital jukebox I need mp3s.

Most discussion of mp3s seems to concentrate on getting smaller and smaller files at an "acceptable" quality.

I have a 60GB hard disk in my jukebox and I don't mind having larger files to get better audio quality, although using uncompressed wav files is just too much. (And I don't want to venture into wma format).

I find encoding with vbr somewhere between 200 and 320 kbps gives me files of about 1/5 the size of a wav file that when using my portable equipment sound as good as CD to my ears. (I'm over 50 so I haven't got perfect hearing anyway).

I'm happy with the parameters I use with Wave Corrector and lame 3.96.1 but I wonder if I could get better or similar quality with smaller files.

Detailed arguments about lame parameters make my head explode and I end up thoroughly confused, but what parameters do other people use? Does everyone just stick to the alt-presets or has someone found the magic combination for excellent audio quality and moderate filesize?

My parameters: -v -q 0 -V0 -b256 -ms

This isn't for archiving so lossy compression is acceptable.

[Glenn]

[deadpoirotsketch]

[Sandy Fairservice]