i've this question today...is possible to listen some tracks in mp3 format without little silence between one track and other ?
for example if i'm listening an audio live cd i don't hear the silence between the tracks...but when i hear the same tracks ripped in mp3 format i hear a little gap...
my question is if there a mode to don't listen the small pause in mp3 mode or in mp3 player

[...]
"Gapless playback" consists of two parts:

1) Gapless decoding - lossy formats like MP3 store audio data in frames, which can't store entire audio CD track without either truncating last samples or adding extra null samples (total length must be a multiply of frame size, being fixed at 1152 samples for MPEG-1 layer 3); MP3 also suffers from encoder/decoder delay causing the decoder to produce additional null samples at the beginning of decoded stream. In order to correct this problem, lossy-encoded file needs to store two additional numbers - amount of samples to remove at the beginning of stream, and amount of samples to remove at the end of stream, then the decoder needs to take these nubmers into account. That's what this thread is about. LAME 3.90 and newer can store gapless playback info in LAME headers, and some players (like foobar2000) can play those files without encoder-added null samples at the beginning/end of file.
Another way to workaround gapless decoding is to write a DSP that tries to guess amount of samples that needs to be removed, but that method is simply unreliable and generally useless since players reading LAME header info exist (as well as tools to manually add gapless playback info to MP3 files that don't contain it).

2) Gapless output - many (mostly old) players have a design flaw requiring them to reopen wave output device between tracks, producing audible pauses. Modern players such as Winamp3 and foobar2000 don't have this problem; Winamp2/5 has "gapless output plugins" that avoid reopening output at cost of other minor glitches (displayed playback position being ahead of actual sound, etc; they trick the player to start decoding next track while previous one is still being played).

--nogap switch in lame, and the rio karma i heard has gapless playback.

Does Lame 3.90.3 write these 'gapless' headers?

Next, you'll have to find a player or a gapless (NOT A CROSS-FADER) output plugins (if using WinAmp - I don't know if WA5 has a gapless output...) You'll find this on the WA web site, search for 'gapless'.
--
be020261

thanks to all for the answers...
i found on the WA web site gapless output but seems it doesn't work...
i listen my mp3 live maded to me with EAC + lame 3.90.3...and i hear gap between tracks

Continued (sort of) from http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/showtopic/17724

1. What It Is
It's the twisted-by-Otachan () version of the tweaked-by-YunaSoft-and-moka version of the written-by-Shibata, mpg123-based, Winamp5 MP3 decoding plugin.

2. Changes Since 1.18y pl-08

• Supports Winamp5 (Thanks to T-Matsuo)
  
  
  
• Supports MP1, MP2
  
  
  
• Supports ID3v2 and APE tags
  
  
  
• Can display ID3v2/APE tag specific data in titles (%a ~ %e)
  
  
  
• Takes care of multibyte encodings in title display
  
  
  
• Tag editing functions are disabled; T-Matsuo's mp3infp is called externally instead. You need to install mp3infp to edit tags.
  
  
  
• Int 24bit, Int 32bit, Float 32bit, Float 64bit output possible
  
  
  
• Sample-exact output for LAME encoded MP3 files (Gapless decoding)
  
  
• Supports ReplayGain
  
  
  
• Improved streaming playback support
  
  
  
• mpg123 library ugraded to pre0.59s
  
  
  
• Fixed the mpg123 library's limitation of not being able to play MPEG-2.5/8kHz data (Thanks to Northern Verse)

3. Download
in_mpg123_118ot72.zip Ver. 1.18y ot72 (764KB) (20040815)

And here's the gapless output I use (was using err, when i used to use WA5   ) (ie point #2 in my first post)
Matthew Lloyd - Gapless output for WA

The following is a user's review of Matthew Lloyd's plugin, taken directly from the above link (emphasis mine):

"User Review:
by Mike Mason
Feb. 9, 2003
Works a bit, but still leaves audible gaps (mp3s have silence at the start of them due to the way they're encoded). Mp3splice works much better, leaving no gaps, and is also available in the plugins section."

Download Mp3splice here.

Regards,
Madrigal

... my external hdd is crashed () so i dont have much mp3 / files to test with it.

If that doesn't help, then use Foobar

foobar is gapeless for default or which option I must set?

And here's the gapless output I use (was using err, when i used to use WA5   ) (ie point #2 in my first post)
Matthew Lloyd - Gapless output for WA

Mp3splice works much better, leaving no gaps, and is also available in the plugins section."

Download Mp3splice here.

Regards,
Madrigal

I hear everyone saying that Foobar is gapless by default but I have just downloaded and installed and there are still gaps between tracks.  They are no where near as bad as the gaps I was hearing in Winamp but they are still there. 

Is there a setting I can change in order to correct this problem?  Except for this little hickup Foobar seems to be a great music player.

I was using a OGG files.

As I mentioned the gaps are miniscule but they do still exist.  Sounds like a crunch when it moves onto the next song in a dj mix.

Don't want to sound like I'm moaning as I already prefer Foobar to any other media players as it simply just straight up plays music and doesn't seem to use up any of my system resources either which is a big plus. 

I hear everyone saying that Foobar is gapless by default but I have just downloaded and installed and there are still gaps between tracks.  They are no where near as bad as the gaps I was hearing in Winamp but they are still there. 

Is there a setting I can change in order to correct this problem?  Except for this little hickup Foobar seems to be a great music player.