My wife is planning on replacing her old 20GB 4th-Gen iPod and is looking at the 80GB iPod Classic. Before she commits to it, though, we're trying to unambiguously verify whether it will play LAME-encoded MP3s gaplessly. I know that Apple introduced gapless playback for various models, but can anyone reassure me that the Classic is one of them?

I can reassure you. It does not play only Lame-mp3 files gaplessly, but all mp3 and aac files. iTunes does not rely on the data that Lame or other encoders store, but analyzes the files itself and does a very good job.

True gapless playback of mp3s are only limited to those created by iTunes and Lame.

Just checked my Classic (160GB) on _Dark Side of the Moon_ and a bit of Wagner. Fine.

Tracks encoded with Lame 3.97b3. I feed my iPod with iTunes on Mac OS X. There is a stage in which it says it's checking for gapless information. I don't know whether it's iTunes that does that or the iPod itself.

I still have not got all my unpopular music tagged properly

Michael

I have an 80GB iPod classic and use LAME v3.96.1 APE (don't ask why I haven't updated) and can confirm that the gapless feature of iTunes/iPod works flawless.

Sounds just like the original CD when using it in my car and with my headphones.

I had a 3rd gen (the dock iPod) and this thing blows it away in both features, battery life, looks and sound quality.

I highly recommend it.
JXL


If you right click on an mp3 file or group of files, and select "Get Info" there is a checkbox under the options tab titled "Part of a Gapless Album" place a check there. It adds a value "iTunGap = 1" in the id3 tag.
JXL

This has to do with the crossfade feature...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304362

If you aren't using the crossfade feature then that setting does nothing.

Do you know what iTunes is doing when it collects gapless data from new files?

Yes, I do.

Did you read this thread?

foo_dop also does a great job BTW!!!!

For those that don't like iTunes.

Thanks to everyone for their reassurance about gapless playback. I'll pass on the good news to my wife.

What i'm missing in this thread is an info whether the iPod needs iTunes to get the necessary info for real gaples playback or plays LAME encoded files without gaps no matter what software you use to "fill" your iPod.

I still don't have an iPod but i'm planning to buy one soon since it gets cheaper every day.

In another forum i read that iTunes has an option for gapless albums. Someone said this option is only necessary if you use the iPod crossfader. The iPod will then recognize gapless albums and won't use the crossfader on these files. But if you don't use the crossfader and copied the files with any other software the iPod still wil play LAME encoded files gapless. Is that rue?

I know this can only work with recent iPods but you don't get pre gen5 iPods these days in stores...

Not true. Lame encoded mp3s include infos for gapless playback but the iPod doesn't understand these tags. iTunes converts them to something the iPod understands. So any other software that you can use to put files on your iPod will have to support this conversion as well.

Amarok for instance doesn't support it yet, gtkpod does. See this thread.

Regards
micmac

Maybe I'm going slightly off-topic, but do latest iPod versions play gaplessly Nero AAC-encoded files?

Yes they do. FYI...try the search command.
JXL