I very much appriciate all of everyone's input. After much reading and much listining this afternoon, I have decided to switch over to the --alt-preset standard LAME setting for my encoding purposes.

kojak71: Do you find that you can sometimes tell the difference between a cd and an mp3 at the alt p s setting? I have not been able to using my moderate home system or a pair of professional quality headphones. I am wondering if the difference will be noticible in a high-quality car audio setup?