In reply to:

This means that I have to specify a "bitrate floor" of 112kbps in the command line. Which, although understandable, means that I'm not getting the full bang-for-the-buck out of the VBR format. In other words, why go to the trouble of doing VBR if you can't have it compress the simple frames below 112? The result is larger file sizes, and the whole point of VBR was to get smaller file sizes.


What I've noticed on a few files is that the minimum bitrate seems to be a preferred minimum bitrate, and that there is a "force" option elsewhere. There are parts of the song that compress more than the minimum should limit, but hovers very close to that mark. This is very distinguishable in the fade-out portion of a song (at least for me ).

Kureg