Since high quality is our goal, this parameter should always be used. See the screenshot on the left for an example. Also note that we don't use EAC's Bit rate dropdown box to specify the bitrate. Putting -b 256 in the Additional command line options will override the settings of this dropdown box. High quality Variable Bitrate encoding settings LAME 3.87 LAME is currently the only MP3 encoder optimally tweaked for Variable Bitrate encoding unlike Fraunhofer and which does not mess up like Xing.
Joint stereo is used.
But this only applies to the Fraunhofer and Xing encoder. LAME offers perfect tweaked joint stereo encoding. It makes the encoder rely more on the psycho-acoustics model, yielding less bits for the same quality. See the screenshot on the left for an example. Therefore it's recommended to use this version, especially when encoding Variable Bitrate MP3s.