Can you help me compile a list of all the currently available gapless portable players? I'm looking for players which will play either MP3, AAC, or OGG, are either solid state or hard drive-based, and will play at least one encoding format truly gaplessly. The only one I know of for sure is the Rio Karma (which I already own), and that has been discontinued. Thanks in advance...

Check out this thread. It seems that gapless feature isn't hardware problem so far, but firmware drawback.

Indeed gapless playback is a firmware issue...

iHP1xx is now gapless with both Ogg Vorbis and Mp3 thanks to amazing Rockbox! But iHP1xx is discontinued too... Anyway there is some other DAP that use very similar hardware:
iRiver H3xx (to be discontinued soon if not yet), iAudio M3, M5 and X5...

But remember porting Rockbox will need work even if the processor is the same...

For actual gapless DAP there is also a thomson Lyra which use a 2.5HD (bulky)...

And that's it...

there is also Sony's NW-HDx's, they only support gapless with Atrac though

I've been watching the DAP scene since last year and despite it's age the Rio Karma is still the only truly worthwhile player out there when it comes to proper audio playback in all regards, and my only real complaint is that 20GB is not enough (MPC support would be nice too). I own two and if I had to I'd buy another if one broke down, despite the fact that they have been discontinued. Everything else should be considered broken in my opinion. I have high hopes for the rumored Neuros III and Rio Chroma, but we're in for a long wait on those if they even appear at all. I don't know why DAP developers have so much trouble when it comes to gapless playback since it seems like an obvious and simple thing to support.

Sorry. You already have the Karma and there is no replacement for that .

iHP1xx is gapless with bgoth Vorbis and Lame Mp3 thanks to Rockbox efforts...

I also do know that there is a Thomson Lyra able to play mp3 gaplessly...

Rockbox currently only plays LAME encoded mp3s gapless if you're lucky. I tried implementing this about a week ago, but ran out of coding time, and it's not been finished yet.
Vorbis, WavPack, FLAC and Musepack (even though it's not realtime yet) should all be gapless, though.

MP3 players: Buyer Beware

Gapless mp3 playback for LAME is really the most that can be expected, though, as far as true gapless playback is concerned. To me, anything beyond that would be an added bonus since it would require some kind of special silence detection.

BTW, I recently purchased a iHP-140 and I'm looking forward to seeing what all of you at rockbox come out with. Your firmware already seems superior to iriver's in many ways and it should be killer once the main bugs and features are worked out. I'm definitely looking forward to Musepack playback on a portable! Thanks for all your hard work so far!

Forgive my ignorance... is Rockbox an alternate firmware for the iHP? Where do I get it?

http://www.rockbox.org/

you might want to read this too http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....7390&hl=rockbox

See specialy:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main...verPortForNoobs

If you speak french check the french version which is paradoxaly more up to date (my translation):
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main...PortPourLesNuls

For advanced information:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IriverPort

I tested Rockbox (the latest version) yesterday on mp3 files which carry each a LAME tag inside (with encoder delays up to 2880-1 and encoder paddings up to 2304-1) and have been produced by this app but gapless playback (Rockbox) did not seem to work properly.

Sebi

Gapless playback on my iRiver iHP-140 with the latest Rockbox build (July 25) now works perfectly for ogg vorbis and flac, and pretty damn close for mp3. Apparently it works well for wavpack too, but I haven't tried it yet. Also, the latest build supports replay gain for vorbis and wavpack: http://www.rockbox.org/daily/changes-20050725.html

I can vouch for WavPack being gapless, at least on all the files I tried on it.

I'll play with the replaygain support tonight

so.. this is my first post then..

Hello to all the community ^^/

I bump this topic for ask if there is an updated list of the gapless portable players (or firmware fix...)

oh well.. i'm looking mainly for flash memory players

thx in advance ^^

I don't have a list, but I do have a player (not flash) that does gapless and supports several formats. Check out the TrekStor Vibez. Its firmware is descended from the Rio line of players. It can be used in MTP or MSC modes for transfering music to/from your computer, so you can drag/drop files if you want, or you can use software (I use MediaMonkey) to transfer. It has great features, probably the best since the Rio Karma. I have never been satisfied with the features of anything but the Rio players, especially with regards to gapless playback and bookmarking long tracks in audiobooks. I was very concerned when Rio disappeared, but then I discovered the Vibez.

I would guess that most offer gapless playback now. After all, this thread is over two years old. Even the iPod offers gapless playback.

thanks, that's nice one. anyway, actually i was looking for something cheeper ^^;; (and also.. can't find it in shops where i live :/ )



mhh.. all ipods are gapples now? anyway.. the shuffle is useless for me.. no display.. no control.. meh
and the others are too expansive.. (okok i admit it, i don't like this brand :P )


something about sony players? i was reading here, are really gapless now? someone have one?

or other suggestions? thanks

Actually, I can't find the Vibez in shops where I live either. I had to get it online. TrekStor doesn't seem to have much of a presence in the US. I was able to do enough research online to be satisfied that it was the one for me though. The ability to bookmark and resume in the middle of a long audiobook track was a real dealbreaker for me on most other players. Maybe some have this ability, but it is nearly impossible to find out if they do or not since it is not mentioned anywhere. Most just assume you want to resume at the beginning of a track.

I would guess the opposite. How many Creative, Cowon, iRiver, Sony, Archos, Panasonic, etc are supporting gapless playback with MP3, AAC, Vorbis or lossless? I'm pretty sure there are few of them... at least if gapless means something else than 'few milli-seconds of silence that don't disturb me as well as normal people'

Quick summary on gapless players, the list is very short:
Apple (gapless with MP3 and AAC): (none of the shuffles do gapless)
-iPod: 5G (firmware 1.2 or later), 5.5G, classic
-nano: 2G, 3G
-Touch
-iPhone

Sony: (new NWZ models are NOT gapless capable at all)
-all non NWZ models are gapless with Atrac only
-S70x is gapless with Atrac and AAC

Of course, any rockbox-able DAP is gapless.

This is why I chose iPods. In the past, Apple iPods were heavily criticized for not having gapless capability, yet look now, they're the only one big player that provides pretty much perfect gapless playback of MP3 and AAC. Sony is dropping Atrac and gapless on their new line of NWZ players.

I've got gapless on my Sansa E260, but then I'm running Rockbox on it of course ;')
Can't remeber if the original firmware has gapless or not...

I have two iPods (8G Nano, 80G) and they both play back MP3's gaplessly if the music has been encoded to be gapless. I listen to lots of house/trance/dance mix music, especially when I'm working out and I've never had any problems.

mhh that was exaustive thanks

so.. iPod or Vibez

wow

Sadly 99% of consumers have no clue what gapless is. So why provide something no one knows about.

sadly.. so true..

It's even sadder considering AudioCD and Minidisc are natively gapless. I mean 2007 DAPs cannot emulate the old technologies?

With Apple going gapless, I though everybody will jump on the gapless bandwagon, but I guessed wrong. Yeah, sad, really sad.