MP3s generated with dbpoweramp not gapless Options

[dancrocker]

I hope this is the right forum and that this topic hasn't been beaten to death. I apologize if I'm wrong on either of these. I searched but didn't find the answer I was looking for. Of course, the amount of info here is a bit overwhelming

I used dbpoweramp to rip to FLAC, then generate 320kbit CBR MP3s. ITunes plays them gaplessly as does foobar2000. However, my iPod (5th generation) does not. There's a teeny "gap" (more like a glitch). My iPhone 3G doesn't play them gaplessly either although the "gap" is more like a click. Meanwhile, MP3s generated by iTunes play on the iPod perfectly.

I know, years ago, there was a lot of noise about apple not supporting gapless. But, I thought this was all resolved. Certainly, it appears to work fine if the MP3s are encoded with iTunes.

Is this a well-known problem? I found some other posts that seemed to say that LAME encoded MP3s (which is what dbpoweramp uses) play gaplessly on iPods. So, I'm puzzled as to while I'm having this trouble. I'd appreciate any help or suggestions.

[kornchild2002]

Well, figuring out if you were being too picky would mean that there isn't anything technically wrong with your iPod. As I said, this helped with someone else. The device may not be performing as you like but at least we could determine if it was operating normally.

Try restoring it first, re-syncing the content, and then listening to it again (don't fast forward through the songs). The issue isn't with Lame. I and many others can attest to this. I even have Lame 3.90.3 files that playback gaplessly.

[dancrocker]

Well, figuring out if you were being too picky would mean that there isn't anything technically wrong with your iPod. As I said, this helped with someone else. The device may not be performing as you like but at least we could determine if it was operating normally.

Try restoring it first, re-syncing the content, and then listening to it again (don't fast forward through the songs). The issue isn't with Lame. I and many others can attest to this. I even have Lame 3.90.3 files that playback gaplessly.

A question for you and others:
When you say your files play gaplessly, are you saying that the transition between tracks is perfect and flawless? If it isn't, then this is what I'm encountering. If it is, then this is what I'm trying to achieve.

Anyways, I performed the following experiments with the indicated results (some I have done before but I repeated them to confirm):

1. Restore iPod
No improvement in playback

2. Rip and MP3 encode with iTunes
Perfect playback. It's impossible to tell where one track ends and the next begins just by listening. In my opinion, this is the way it should be. There's no good reason, again in my opinion, to settle for anything less.

3. Rip and MP3 encode with MAX
Glitch between tracks

4. Rip to ALAC and MP3 encode with MAX
Glitch between tracks

5. Rip to ALAC and MP3 encode with dbpoweramp
Glitch between tracks

6. Rip to FLAC and MP3 encode with dbpoweramp
Glitch between tracks

In all cases, the MP3s played flawlessly in iTunes but, in the cases indicated, weren't quite right when played with the iPod.
I haven't yet tried the WAV comparison suggestion by someone else, but I will.


Conclusions based on my observations:

-The LAME encoding is working fine and is putting the right data into the file to enable proper gapless playback. I believe this because foobar2000 plays the files perfectly
-iTunes properly interprets the header data and plays the files perfectly
-My iPod either does not properly use the header data or has some other issue with LAME encoded MP3s that prevents them from being played gaplessly
-The iTunes MP3 encoder does something different than LAME in order to allow the iPod to play the files perfectly

At this point, I'm wondering if the issue is not strictly related to gapless, but to some other characteristic of the LAME files.

[garym]

A question for you and others:
When you say your files play gaplessly, are you saying that the transition between tracks is perfect and flawless? If it isn't, then this is what I'm encountering. If it is, then this is what I'm trying to achieve.

In my case, my LAME mp3 files have a "perfect and flawless" (your words) transition between tracks 99.9% of the time. And I've actually tried hard to detect a glitch in transition, with headphones, etc. I will say that once in a while, I'll get a glitch when transitioning, usually a function of transitioning between a 30 minute song (e.g., grateful dead, dark star) and the following song. But I can go back and play song again and with the same exact songs, the transition is perfect. Then again, once in a while, I get a glitch in the middle of a song. These I chalk up to the ipod reloading its cache or something odd. It is a computer after all and is reading data from a harddrive.