gapless

[keith mac]

I have an NWZ-A818. I never knew that ripping CDs to mp3 would wreck the (formerly) gapless tracks in various 'Euphoria' compilations, would lose some music between tracks and noticeably reduce the sound quality.

With variable bit rate .wma files via WMP11 I did better - but not much.

I have searched earlier threads for guidance but can't find what I'm looking for - apologies if I'm going over old ground here!

I've now converted most of my CDs using EAC (Exact Audio Copy) extracting the tracks as a single file, encoding in WMA using the highest available VBR bitrate, then dragging and dropping into my player. It's pretty slow going, I lose track details and locations but I do get the original, unbroken recording.

Is there anywhere / anybody on this forum with info on alternative, better ways of doing this job? Things are so much easier on my minidisc!

ps whoops! Should I be in the Software section? Sorry.....

Edited May 13, 2008 by keith mac

[kino170878]

None of Sony's current NWZ series players offer gapless playback. I believe only Atrac and WAV formats offerred gapless playback with the older NWA series and other variants such as the S70* series with noise cancelling.

Basically you are better off getting an Ipod, as much as I hate to say it. I am also a minidisc user and find the omission of gapless playback unforgivable.

[keith mac]

None of Sony's current NWZ series players offer gapless playback. I believe only Atrac and WAV formats offerred gapless playback with the older NWA series and other variants such as the S70* series with noise cancelling.

Basically you are better off getting an Ipod, as much as I hate to say it. I am also a minidisc user and find the omission of gapless playback unforgivable.

Spending a hundred pounds on my present player only to have to replace it with an iPod Classic at $250 minimum to play WAV files doesn't sound attractive!

Unless someone knows a better way I'll stick with EAC to rip - rather slowly - any future tracks. I can live with no track marks but not with split tracks - I generally listen to the whole recording anyway.

Pity ATRAC couldn't have been retained as one of the alternative formats when the move to .mp3 occurred...

[juli_]

None of Sony's current NWZ series players offer gapless playback.

I believe only Atrac and WAV formats offerred gapless playback with the older NWA series

Not true. I have the NWZ-A829 and it plays gapless WAV files

[kino170878]

Not true. I have the NWZ-A829 and it plays gapless WAV files

That's interesting. I might consider getting it after hearing this confirmation.

Edit - I can only seem to find the 8gb model on the Sony UK site.

Edited May 13, 2008 by kino170878

[keith mac]

That's interesting. I might consider getting it after hearing this confirmation.

Edit - I can only seem to find the 8gb model on the Sony UK site.

Gapless or not, isn't 8 Gig a bit small for WAV files? I'd considered it on my own but it wouldn't accommodate many CDS...

[appoloin]

That's interesting. I might consider getting it after hearing this confirmation.

Edit - I can only seem to find the 8gb model on the Sony UK site.

Have a look on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-NWZA829K-16GB...8452&sr=8-1

[juli_]

Gapless or not, isn't 8 Gig a bit small for WAV files? I'd considered it on my own but it wouldn't accommodate many CDS...

As my 8GB 808 played gapless via Atrac it wasn't a problem. Now I have the 829 I have room for a few favourite gapless albums. I think I have around 5 on there, but as I wasn't aware the 829 played gapless at all, it was a nice surprise (for a change!!)

[pata2001]

Not true. I have the NWZ-A829 and it plays gapless WAV files

Could you record a video of the device playing the tracks gaplessly and post it to youtube?

[Guest Stuge]

Could you record a video of the device playing the tracks gaplessly and post it to youtube?

looks like Pata might be interested in getting one if it does

[juli_]

Could you record a video of the device playing the tracks gaplessly and post it to youtube?

I shouldn't have to prove it since I am listening to gapless as I type!! But as you are so cynical, I WILL video it!! How would you like me to record it, the last minute of one song and the first seconds of the next song? As you won't be able to 'hear' that it is gapless, how does that prove anything? On non gapless tracks the time bar goes from one song into the next anyway so I don't see how that helps prove it can play gapless. The only other way I can think of is to put it in the speaker cradle and play it through there, that way you can 'hear' there is no gap. Would that be good enough for you??

[kino170878]

Pata has a long standing distrust of Sony, that's all

Anyways Juli thanks for the tip off. I will seriously consider purchasing one now.

[juli_]

Pata has a long standing distrust of Sony, that's all

Anyways Juli thanks for the tip off. I will seriously consider purchasing one now.

I don't mind videoing it at all. But I just want Pata to explain which way to do it so it can be proved the 829 plays gapless. I can't see it's provable just by videoing the player itself going from one track to another unless it can be heard. If there's another way, let me know. I'm more than happy to do it if anyone wants to be absolutely sure it can play gapless WAV files.

[fugusushi]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless

this maybe useful...?

[bigbrother]

It can do gapless WAV files like what juli has said, it's a good surprise, at least for people who really need it, also since 16GB space is here, maybe it's give people more space to load their songs in any way that they want.

[juli_]

It can do gapless WAV files like what juli has said, it's a good surprise, at least for people who really need it, also since 16GB space is here, maybe it's give people more space to load their songs in any way that they want.

Thank you for confirming it.

And yes, it was a huge surprise to discover gapless WAV files. With 16GB I am able to keep my most 'important' albums in gapless.

Edited May 14, 2008 by juli

[keith mac]

As my 8GB 808 played gapless via Atrac it wasn't a problem. Now I have the 829 I have room for a few favourite gapless albums. I think I have around 5 on there, but as I wasn't aware the 829 played gapless at all, it was a nice surprise (for a change!!)

What file format have you used for recording? WAV? .mp3?

[juli_]

What file format have you used for recording? WAV? .mp3?

Do you mean 'ripping'? WAV for my gapless albums and mp3@320kbps for everything else.

[pata2001]

I shouldn't have to prove it since I am listening to gapless as I type!! But as you are so cynical, I WILL video it!! How would you like me to record it, the last minute of one song and the first seconds of the next song? As you won't be able to 'hear' that it is gapless, how does that prove anything? On non gapless tracks the time bar goes from one song into the next anyway so I don't see how that helps prove it can play gapless. The only other way I can think of is to put it in the speaker cradle and play it through there, that way you can 'hear' there is no gap. Would that be good enough for you??

WTF? Are you smokin something? All I did was ask a question.

1. Connect your Sony to a speaker.

2. Play 2 tracks that you know are gapless.

3. Start recording with a digicam or cellphone showing the timebar and sound being gapless. Any recent digicam/cellphone can record video AND audio just fine.

4. Upload to youtube

How hard is that? I did it many times already.

[sarcasm]I am the president of Sony, and since I'm sitting inside Sony's head office, I don't have to prove anything.[/sarcasm]

[pata2001]

Pata has a long standing distrust of Sony, that's all

I have a distrust of people that claiming an unadvertised feature without providing proof. If I claim my PS3 can play Xbox games, would you want proof? Same thing.

[Guest Stuge]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gapless

this maybe useful...?

well,He was not asking what gapless means. haha

[keith mac]

Do you mean 'ripping'? WAV for my gapless albums and mp3@320kbps for everything else.

I thought WAV were pretty big files and limited storage space is a problem on flashed based players?

My problems - I started this thread - were most noticeable when ripping in .mp3 using WMP11. There were clicks, noticeable gaps between tracks and even pieces of music missing. None of these attributes are on the original CD naturally enough. Ripping with EAC and encoding to WMA files improved things but music sections around notional track markers are still missing.

If you're playing .mp3 files without any of the above problems you've done well. If so what software do you use? Perhaps mine isn't particularly suitable for my needs?

[Trondis]

Hi!

Using wav-files on a 8GB player sounds like a big waste to me. I am not impressed that NWZ-A829 can play back wav-files gaplessly.

Has anyone tried AAC-files encoded with Nero or iTunes on the Sony players?

[juli_]

I thought WAV were pretty big files and limited storage space is a problem on flashed based players?

They ARE big since the size is the same as the original CD.

But to put it into perspective - on my 16GB 829, I have 5 albums in WAV, plus 1230 songs (@320kbps) and eight 20-minute sitcom episodes with 2.2GB left to spare. That's more than enough for my needs (at the moment anyway!)

[juli_]

I am not impressed that NWZ-A829 can play back wav-files gaplessly.

No one's asking you to be impressed. The fact is most people (myself included) were not aware the 829 could play gapless at all. Therefore it was a bonus to find out it could. I'm very 'impressed' since normally I find features missing. I was aware of all the shortcomings of the 829 before I bought it, and the gapless feature for WAVs was a nice unexpected surprise.

[keith mac]

They ARE big since the size is the same as the original CD.

But to put it into perspective - on my 16GB 829, I have 5 albums in WAV, plus 1230 songs (@320kbps) and eight 20-minute sitcom episodes with 2.2GB left to spare. That's more than enough for my needs (at the moment anyway!)

That's what I had thought about WAV. I've got 18 Euphoria compilation CDs which, as WAV files, would swallow all the free (approx.) 7.4Gig on my little 'un. Got to have compression. Didn't know about MP3 issues before I bought or I probably would have got an iPod Classic for $250, rather than my Sony at 100 quid. Hey, ho.

[keith mac]

After all the discussion/bickering about 829 and its ability to play gaplessly my own query got rather left out. Will someone please help with the following.

I was under the impression that it is the software used when ripping into MP3 that causes clicks, gaps or extra gaps to be added to the sound track. Is that correct? If so, can it be avoided?

Presumably ripping continuous classical music from CD - without breaks but with notional track points - would suffer in a similar way to my own recordings ie clicks, pauses and/or gaps? Along with audio losses caused by heavy compression does this mean that such music just isn't suited to MP3 compression? Am I, then, wasting effort trying to achieve a compressed version of my original CDs in any reasonably listenable format?

On my minidisc I used LP2 when recording CDs which is, I guess, 50% compression. Can an equivalent be achieved for my 818 without wrecking the continuous music? If so, what software ?

[kino170878]

Current Sony players will play gaplessly only with WAV. You have stated that this is not what you are after, but that you would still like to have gapless at compressed rates.

Sony does not do gapless with compressed rates.

Therefore decide whether or not your want to stick with Sony at WAV - the only way currently to hear gapless tracks. If the answer is yes, go for Sony. If the answer is no, go for the iPod.

Edit - there are Japanese only Atrac players that can do gapless at atrac3plus format should you wish to go down that route.

Edited May 19, 2008 by kino170878

[keith mac]

Current Sony players will play gaplessly only with WAV. You have stated that this is not what you are after, but that you would still like to have gapless at compressed rates.

Sony does not do gapless with compressed rates.

Therefore decide whether or not your want to stick with Sony at WAV - the only way currently to hear gapless tracks. If the answer is yes, go for Sony. If the answer is no, go for the iPod.

Edit - there are Japanese only Atrac players that can do gapless at atrac3plus format should you wish to go down that route.

A simple answer so it must be me who can't understand it. I get the WAV bit. But I have WMA files playing without gaps as a single large file so what does "Sony does not do gapless with compressed rates." actually imply please? I don't use any Sony compression software so do you mean it is the Sony O/S which will insert gaps?

Do you mean iPods - ripping with Apple's software - will play MP3 (or other file formats) without problems - gaps, clicks etc?

I'm getting really confused by the answers I'm receiving but perhaps that's down to me - am I asking the wrong questions or using the wrong terminology when I ask my questions?

[Weaves_]

No one's asking you to be impressed. The fact is most people (myself included) were not aware the 829 could play gapless at all. Therefore it was a bonus to find out it could. I'm very 'impressed' since normally I find features missing. I was aware of all the shortcomings of the 829 before I bought it, and the gapless feature for WAVs was a nice unexpected surprise.

Juli,

I searched this whole thread and noticed something quite odd. Not one single person has even thanked you for raising this awareness.

Thank you Juli for bringing this to our attention.

However, it may be too late for me. Now that the Zune 2.0 is gapless and plays WMA Lossless-it looks like a better option these days. I will probably keep my HD5 until it dies, then see what players have the features I need at that point.

Edited May 21, 2008 by Weaves

[juli_]

Juli,

I searched this whole thread and noticed something quite odd. Not one single person has even thanked you for raising this awareness.

Thank you Juli for bringing this to our attention.

However, it may be too late for me.

Now that the Zune 2.0 is gapless and plays WMA Lossless-it looks like a better option these days. I will probably keep my HD5 until it dies, then see what players have the features I need at that point.

As soon as I ordered the Sony, the Zune got the new software for gapless and auto playlists etc. Can you believe it?? It seemed like a bit of a warning not to sell it. But I couldn't really justify keeping both and the Sony is much more portable than the Zune. And of course, now you know why I was so pleased to discover the Sony played gapless WAV files

P.S I think you would like the Zune, it does have a lovely clean sound signature with a really big soundstage.

[Guest Stuge]

I couldn't really justify keeping both and the Sony is much more portable than the Zune.

wow !Die heart Sony fan

[Jerex]

Hi Keith,

To try and answer your query, the current generation of Sony players (NWZ series) does not feature gapless playback with any compressed music encoded as individual tracks, that means MP3, AAC, WMA etc. There will always be a 1-2 second gap between each track, and possibly some compression artifacts (i.e. pops and clicks). I'm not sure if different codecs/encoders are able to reduce or eliminate the artifacts, so it would just be a short gap.

Thanks to Juli for bringing to our attention the fact that the 829 does play WAV files gaplessly, which I was unaware of previously. I'm guessing all the NWZ players can do the same?

So basically, the only way for you to get gapless playback on a NWZ player, including yours, would be either to encode the music as WAV files, which as you have pointed out would take too much space in most cases. The other option which you have also discovered would be to encode the album as one continuous file, so it is played back without any pauses/gaps, the obvious disadvantage being no track marks in the single big file.

I guess your best option for now would be to use the second method, of encoding gapless albums as one continuous file, and 'non-gapless' music normally, as individual tracks. I would recommend using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) rather than WMP11 for all your music, as most people agree it is the best, most accurate ripping program and may help to eliminate or at least reduce artifacts. Have you tried using the LAME MP3 encoder? It's included in EAC and is one of the best lossy codecs (at bitrates above 160kpbs). Give these two a go and let us know your findings.

I know how frustrating it is listening to an album which is supposed to have no gaps with unwanted pauses and pops/clicks. One of the reasons I am currently sticking with my ATRAC gear. ATRAC achieves gapless by creating a Table Of Contents (TOC) log, with time codes for all the tracks, so during playback it is able to string them all together as they were in the source material. I believe the iPod and Zune use a different method where after ripping/encoding, the software (iTunes etc.) analyses the tracks and tags each file with metadata for the removal of gaps when the file is played.

Anyway, hope some of the stuff above is helpful!

[kino170878]

Juli,

I searched this whole thread and noticed something quite odd. Not one single person has even thanked you for raising this awareness.

Thank you Juli for bringing this to our attention.

If you had searched a little harder, you would have realised that in post 12 of this thread I did thank her.

Anyways, as gapless fans I agree that we should all celebrate this feature on the new Sony players, and hopefully this will motivate even better implementation of gapless playback in the future.

Edited May 22, 2008 by kino170878

[juli_]

No need for the thanks, but thanks for the thanks anyway

I assume the entire NWZ series plays gapless WAV files, but I must say I'm surprised it wasn't made clearer in the manual. Perhaps it was, and I didn't read it thoroughly enough. Anyway, as I said, I wasn't expecting it so it was a nice surprise.

Jerex - on the Zune I ripped gapless albums as one track through iTunes. I couldn't find how to do that in WMP. It served its purpose for the short time I had it, but you couldn't f/f quickly on the Zune if you wanted to get somewhere close to the next 'unmarked' track. The Sony f/f works much better as you can f/f fast if you pause it first and you can actually hear the music fast forwarding so you get some idea of what you're looking for.

I also have EAC installed and have been using it to burn my latest CDs since the ones I rip with WMP quite often 'skip' after they've been burned (despite being on the slowest setting!)

Stuge:

wow !Die heart Sony fan smile.gif cool.gif

It looks like it!! But I did give something else a try. I like 'wearing' the Sony so I can wander round with it on and still listen to music. With the Zune I had to be sitting still unless I used the belt clip I bought, but even then, you couldn't see the screen unless you removed it from the clip. Plus the Zune had too many steps to get back to the 'now playing' screen. I guess I'm impatient and got used to the immediacy of the Sony. I'm vert happy with it I have to say, especially as it's down to £185 now and Amazon refunded me the difference

[keith mac]

Hi Keith,

To try and answer your query, the current generation of Sony players (NWZ series) does not feature gapless playback with any compressed music encoded as individual tracks, that means MP3, AAC, WMA etc. There will always be a 1-2 second gap between each track, and possibly some compression artifacts (i.e. pops and clicks). I'm not sure if different codecs/encoders are able to reduce or eliminate the artifacts, so it would just be a short gap.

Thanks to Juli for bringing to our attention the fact ......................................music, as most people agree it is the best, most accurate ripping program and may help to eliminate or at least reduce artifacts. Have you tried using the LAME MP3 encoder? It's included in EAC and is one of the best lossy codecs (at bitrates above 160kpbs). Give these two a go and let us know your findings.

I know how frustrating it is listening to an album which is supposed to have no gaps with unwanted pauses and pops/clicks. One of the reasons I am currently sticking with my ATRAC gear. ATRAC achieves gapless by creating a Table Of Contents (TOC) log, with time codes for all the tracks, so during playback it is able to string them all together as they were in the source material. I believe the iPod and Zune use a different method where after ripping/encoding, the software (iTunes etc.) analyses the tracks and tags each file with metadata for the removal of gaps when the file is played.

Anyway, hope some of the stuff above is helpful!

Hi Jerex and thanks for your reply.

In response: "To try and answer your query, the current generation of Sony players (NWZ series) does not feature gapless playback with any compressed music encoded as individual tracks, that means MP3, AAC, WMA etc. There will always be a 1-2 second gap between each track, and possibly some compression artifacts (i.e. pops and clicks). I'm not sure if different codecs/encoders are able to reduce or eliminate the artifacts, so it would just be a short gap."

That's just what I learned from research and was hoping the info was out of date.

"I guess your best option for now would be to use the second method, of encoding gapless albums as one continuous file, and 'non-gapless' music normally, as individual tracks. I would recommend using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) rather than WMP11 for all your music, as most people agree it is the best, most accurate ripping program and may help to eliminate or at least reduce artifacts. Have you tried using the LAME MP3 encoder? It's included in EAC and is one of the best lossy codecs (at bitrates above 160kpbs)."

I've done everything you've suggested here - EAC (one large file, no tracks) worked but it's SO SLOW! It's a good thing I didn't have many CDs to rip.... LAME MP3? Yes I used that after the initial ripping problems and the results were better by far (no clicks, fuller sound) than WMP but still with missing music... WMP with WMA was fairly good, too, but still the music was broken. Shame.

I didn't know why ATRAC gave such good results - thanks for the info. I still have - and will use - my MD player, particularly if I need a 'live' radio or TV sound recording. If I'm sitting down I prefer a trusty portable CD player - no compression losses, no clicks, pops or gaps and 'nicer' sound (I think - it's hard to be really objective) The Sony MP3 player is brilliant for podcasts but I wish I had chosen an iPod now.....

I never knew there would be such difficulties...

thanks again - it seems that I've done all I can

Edited May 23, 2008 by keith mac