I'm way behind the times. I have not yet ripped and archived my music collection, although I have been planning to for years. I have selected FLAC as my format for archival and home playback (via squeezebox). There are just a few parts that I can't quite figure out...I would like to be able to achieve the following:

1.) Playback of single songs without gaps. I know that FLAC is inherently gapless, but Im using the term 'gap' as any leading or trailing silence of a song. I have a small program that will identify leading and trailing silence, as well as recorded silence in between a song and a "hidden track".

2.) Playback of single songs using track gain.

3.) Playback of album with all gaps (as defined above) intact, just as recorded.

4.) Playback of album with albumgain

Is this achievable? I was trying to envision doing this as a single flac with cue, and some extra indexes, but Im really not sure, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

From what I know, all of your requirements are easily met if you're using Foobar. As for requiring a cue sheet to preserve gaps, it isn't ncessary, imho, as all the album based music I've ever ripped, played just fine without any special consideration other than just making sure EAC was properly set up. However, it took some time to get it just the way I wanted it, as the more I knew I could do, the more I wanted to do.