[pne]

so i'm not up to date on the latest gizmos in the mp3 realm...what exactly is gapless playback? i've been hearing this term a lot and its buggin me.

 

[becomethemould]

quick google:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless_playback

 

[pne]

so basically everyone is ranting about that 1-2 second pause between tracks?

 

[davidd]

yeah, because gaps are very annoying on some albums

 

[Big D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pne so basically everyone is ranting about that 1-2 second pause between tracks?

When listening to live or mix recordings the gap is a real annoyance for many people. The main irritation is that the gap has been added for no good reason.

 

[TooNice]

Maybe it is because I don't listen to live recordings.. But I am just as confused about this as well. I've got gapless enabled in Foobar, but I can live just as well without to be honest.

 

[gshan]

I have tons of albums (in many different genres) that are produced to be played back gapless. There have been a few threads regarding the desire for gapless. ("gapless" under title search)

 

[quackattack]

I agree it is annoying, but people make WAY too big of deal about it.

 

[kukrisna]

i donno - for me it depends on the album - like Dark Side of the Moon i could just not listen to with gaps but if it's something else like a collection of sinatra songs that dont connect then it's not really an issue

to each his/her own though

 

[Beethovenian]

But the whole point of the gapless discussion is exactly having albums like Dark Side of the Moon without gaps, not the Sinatra songs. It's not inserting fermatas in Beethoven symphonies that were never supposed to have them, it's not breaking the flow of live recordings, it's preserving the transition of a DJ mix, it's respecting the original concept of progressive rock bands. The issue may sometimes be blown out of proportion, but that's the only way to raise it, by trumpeting about it until people start to listen. Poor engineering (which is the reason for this discussion even existing) should be criticised, even if it doesn't affect as many lives.

 

[Oga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beethovenian But the whole point of the gapless discussion is exactly having albums like Dark Side of the Moon without gaps, not the Sinatra songs. It's not inserting fermatas in Beethoven symphonies that were never supposed to have them, it's not breaking the flow of live recordings, it's preserving the transition of a DJ mix, it's respecting the original concept of progressive rock bands. The issue may sometimes be blown out of proportion, but that's the only way to raise it, by trumpeting about it until people start to listen. Poor engineering (which is the reason for this discussion even existing) should be criticised, even if it doesn't affect as many lives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by quackattack I agree it is annoying, but people make WAY too big of deal about it.

It actually is a big deal. Not only for Pink Floyd. Try listeing to any proper Dance music or elctronica DJ mix and its pretty obvious that gapless is much more than a "nice to have". And there entire chunks of music listeners who listen to just that type of music and not much else!

Besides, if all these companies can find the time and resources to think up and execute (and renew all the time) DRM schemes to lock up music that you already paid for - it goes without saying they could take 5 minutes to resolve the issue of the consumer hearing the music properly!

For this reason I just flat out refuse to touch Apple stuff. They spend a hella lot of ti,e more time on DRM and Itunes music store yet they basically ignore everyone clamouring for gapless support or proper Ogg or FLAC support.

Its not a technical question, its a mere a question of priorities.

 

[haroldpark]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kukrisna i donno - for me it depends on the album - like Dark Side of the Moon i could just not listen to with gaps but if it's something else like a collection of sinatra songs that dont connect then it's not really an issue

As others have pointed out if you are listening to music that has a gap between each track already then it obviously makes no difference. It is only relevant to albums that contain one or more tracks which follow each other seamlessly. And in this case it can be very annoying. Would you accept a player that every 5 songs would pause in the middle of playing to refill the buffer?
Gapless is a dealbreaker for me. The fact that it could and has been implemented before relatively painlessly makes it that much worse that we ae living in the age of 4 gig flash players and very few people have bothered to address the issue.

 

[jmb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by quackattack I agree it is annoying, but people make WAY too big of deal about it.

Not if you're a music lover and dedicated to good accurate reproduction.

If you don't care about gapless playback, then you are a just a casual listener. If you don't understand, then there is really no point trying to convince you.

Or, maybe, you never listen to gapless albums, so its a non-issue for you.

 

[samk64]

i've decided to hold off from buying mp3 players for now and use a portable cd player if i ever listen to music, and am planning to buy a cheap cdp for home...

 

[jmb]

Quote:

Originally Posted by samk64 i've decided to hold off from buying mp3 players for now and use a portable cd player if i ever listen to music, and am planning to buy a cheap cdp for home...

The Rio Karma supports gapless playback