i use cue files when i want to rip a whole CD to a big mp3 file so i have gapless play. Off course i cant see the individual tracs but the mp3cue plugin takes care of that in winamp.

i was curious to know whether people use cue files for other audio formats as well and which ones ??

never have touched them here, or even looked at them.

When I used mp3, I didn't need cuesheets because I did not have album music that required gapless playback for maximum enjoyment.
Now, I use Musepack .

I suppose i should say which formats allow gapless play ( no need for cue file ) and which formats dont ?

the list reads so far

gapless not supported : mp3

gapless supported : mpc

maybe others more knowledgeable than myself can add

Latest LAME version can be gapless. It stores actual lenght in the LAME tag that can be read by players and used to make gapless playback possible.
Only player that supports it currently is AFAIK foobar2000.

Ogg Vorbis is gapless too. Not sure about aac but I think it should be.

gapless not supported : mp3 ( with foobar)

gapless supported : mpc, ogg

any more ?

Not anymore, with the gapkiller plugin with fb2k v0.7.

me bad

gapless not supported : mp3

gapless supported : mpc, ogg, mp3 ( with foobar)

Though admittedly i am thinking of the formats in native mode. foobar works for mp3, but not in any other mp3 player cept winamp.


any more ?

You can get gapless playback in MP4, but not in AAC (unless you use gap killing hacks)

gapless not supported : mp3, aac

gapless supported : mpc, ogg, mp4

gapless supported ( with 3rd party s/w) : mp3, aac



what about FLAC, wma, APE , mp3pro ?

any others i missed....

All lossless formats are gapless. (If they weren't, they wouldn't be lossless )

WMA is gapless.

MP3pro isn't.

You don't have to use that plugin in foobar if your files are encoded with recent LAME.
That plugin is just a hack.

gapless not supported : mp3, aac, mp3pro

gapless supported : mpc, ogg, mp4, FLAC, wma

gapless supported ( with 3rd party s/w) : mp3, aac



APE is lossless ..but is it gapless ? ...i wonder why they have APL files then.

APL files are created using the makeapl utility which inputting a cue file and it creates APL files.,,which are basically pointers to the track position in the big APE file.

Yes. All lossless formats are gapless. That lies in the definition of lossless: that it can decode to the original files bit-perfect.

gapless not supported : mp3 ( pre-recent lame), aac, mp3pro

gapless supported : mpc, ogg, mp4, FLAC, wma, mp3 ( with recent LAME #??)

gapless supported ( with 3rd party s/w) : mp3, aac


which of course begs the question..if your mp3s are encoded pre-Recent lame ver ?? ...your stuck with cue sheets.

regarding the above gapless formats how well do the players that support these formats play them ?

ie do the players handle the gapless aspect properly ?

i am aware that foobar does ..but what about others.

do people using the above (gapless) formats still have to resort to cue files cos the player does not do such a good job ?