Detecting gaps using EAC to rip CDs, Is it necessary when creating mp3s? Options

[matthammy]

Hi everyone,

I'm just about to begin the process of converting my CD collection to mp3 as I'm getting a jukebox 3 in about a week or so.

I've tried to search for the answer to this question on the forum but I don't think its been asked before (sorry if it has).

My question is:-

When ripping a cd to convert to mp3 and NOT to later burn to audio CD is it necessary to get EAC to detect the gaps?

If not, why not?

And if so, should you keep the default option to add the gap to the end of the previous track or leave out the gap all together?

Any help anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated as I don't want to encode a couple of hundred CDs and then find out i've done it wrong!

many thanks

matthammy

[netarchy]

Detecting gaps can only make your rip that much more accurate (I find it quite useful), though it is best used in combination with your drives read offset. (www.accuraterip.com is a great way to find out your read offset)

As for mp3, from what I have been informed, mp3's are not gapless by nature, so the usefulness of gap detection in EAC diminishes with an mp3 encode since the frames don't match up most of the time between mp3 tracks (hence the numerous gapless plugins and such designed to filter out those extra frames of silence for various players).

As for the default option to leave the gap at the end of previous track, I would keep it, as this is meant to keep your rip as close to the original cd playtime/timing as possible.


If I am mistaken on any of my advice feel free to correct me people

[Pio2001]

Thank you for answering, netarchy, but I disagree with the usefulness of gaps for MP3s.

First, the FAQs about gaps explain well what is a gap.

Now, detecting gaps is less "secure", IMHO, froml a strict MP3 rip point of view, since it only adds chances of freezing, spin down, ore more often mistakes about gap settings. The default advised setting, "append to previous track", if we don't take the cuesheet into account, is just cancelling the effect of the gap detection !

You might want to detect gaps and remove them if you want your MP3 to playback without the silences between track, but for this, a gapless plugin with a customizable threshold would be much more secure, because you can certainly find some CDs with music into the gaps.

Not detecting gaps leaves the tracks as they are on the CD : with silence for those with silence between them, and without silcence for those that don't have silence between them.