Comment 53 for bug 195483

It's taken over a year for me to obtain a cataract operation, but I can now see well enough to add another response to this Sound-Juicer problem saga.
When I first researched modifying Sound Juicer (aka Audio CD Extractor) back in LinuxMint-4 and Ubuntu 7.10 days, I downloaded and printed out the 'buntu-restricted-extras, gst-inspect information for the included LAME encoder variant (aka lamemp3enc).
However, I was then greatly aided in data interpretation by a Windows audio expert (aka Slipstreem), who knew all about LAME developer activities and guided my work and use of no-longer-available graphical EncSpot to assess the outcome of applied modifications.
Only being interested in 'CD Quality MP3' that by default was actually only Constant Bit Rate (CBR) 128K, I wasn't interested in greater than 320K studio quality but in 32K-320K Variable Bit Rate (VBR) quality.

Since then, folk have failed or been unable to add the requisite 'ugly' plugins that are part of the 'buntu-restricted-extras suite, which hasn't been helped by release varying Synaptic 'glitches'. Also, in typical typo-intolerant fashion, folk have failed to enter the profile modifications that I recommended.
To recap, after Adding 'buntu-restricted-extras and then Sound Juicer, select Edit Preferences, select the requisite CD Drive, select Eject after extracting tracks and Open music folder when finished. Next select 'CD Quality, MP3 (.mp3 type)' Output Format and Edit Profiles, then select 'CD Quality, MP3' and Edit. Finally Edit the Gstreamer pipeline as follows and then Close, Close, Close to save all modifications, which become the defaults.
Initial, default profile :
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc mode=0 vbr-quality=6 ! Id3v2mux
Amend mode=0 to mode=1, to obtain 'Joint Stereo'
Amend vbr-quality=6 to vbr-quality=2, for the benefit of young and keen of hearing
Insert vbr=4 to employ LAME's new VBR algorithm (nothing to do with misquoted quality)
Insert vbr-min-bitrate=32, to set the minimum VBR bitrate
Insert vbr-max-bitrate=320, to set the maximum VBR bitrate
Hence the final, modified profile :
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc mode=1 vbr=4 vbr-min-bitrate=32 vbr-max-bitrate=320 vbr-quality=2 ! Id3v2mux
(KennoVO - note that 'lame name=enc' ensures use of the correct LAME plugin.)

In general, note that distributions like LinuxMint-9 'dvds' and PCLinuxOS have got round all the plugin addition problems by pre-including them.

Meanwhile, Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha2 briefly introduced a new default as follows, but it's been abandoned in later development releases, so who knows what the formal release will use :

audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lamemp3enc name=enc target=0 quality=6 ! xingmux ! Id3v2mux

I don't claim to have achieved perfection with my modifications, but most if not all listeners are content with achieved playback through reasonable equipment.

For 'tinkerers' I attach a PDF file reproduction of Ubuntu 10.04's LAME information etc.