**PLEASE READ CAREFULLY** 1) Got a question? Please ask it of the Darko.Audio UA-cam community (and not me) as I'm now busy making the NEXT video 2) All comments here are moderated by a third party: instagram.com/p/CTWcokaszpW/ 3) Polite comments that advance the conversation are most welcome (but no URLs, please)
You are very polite about DTS Play-Fi. How on earth, in 2022, can dedicated streaming software not be gap less ? Try to listen to an opera recording with gaps in between, it ruins everything.
Nobody expects expensive hifi equipment to break Beatles-Abbey Road or Pink Floyd's DSOTM. You're right to be passionate about gapless because it's important.
A few years ago, I was looking for a network streaming player. Gapless playback is an absolute must. ( Pink Floyd fan etc etc). Why is it after all this time, this issue is still rearing it's head??? Some serious high end manufacturers incorporating software that can't handle it, and still think it's acceptable to compromise with small, none intended breaks in what is recorded as a continuous piece of music.
I gave away my 6000n just for the DTS play-fi app issues, I just couldn't gather enough patience to deal with it and got home a Node 2i which took care of all my grievance. Love your posts. Cheers!
... I was seriously about to purchase the Audiolab 6000A Play for my Christmas treat bit after your great Vlog I bought the Bluesound POWERNODE and John I’m so happy I did! It sounds amazing and streams without any problems or Gaps! 👍 ...
Another revealing , balanced look at the state of play with gapless and non gapless products, thanks John , love the channel. Happy new year to you bud. 👍
Hi John. Thanks for highlighting Gapless playback in these last two videos. I'm still in the HiFi stone age, listening to LP's, (LP12) CD's (AudioLab 6000CDT) and iTunes & Spotify (MacBook Pro via USB), and it's all as the maker intended. I mistakenly thought "gapless" applied to Spotify playlists (my 17yr old has a 4 sec crossfade on his account), but I now realise that it's about playback being a faithful reproduction of artist intent - I remember with Level 42 when we were compiling an album running order onto half inch tape back in the 80s, we would pay great attention to the gaps between tracks (or no gap sometimes), and I would attend the album cutting room sessions to ensure fidelity in all aspects. I have been putting off installing a streamer/CD ripper because of the learning curve (Roon), but as I mainly listen to a mix of Classical, Jazz, World and Electronica, and occasional Rock, Pop and Soul, this has been a cautionary tale. Dark Side or Innervisions with gaps? As with Atomkraft, Nein danke!!
Thank you John for for correcting the review. As a consumer I highly value how you handle mistakes. It's not that you (or anyone) made a mistake, it's how you handle the mistake. I think you handled this one great. Sorry that it took you more time but you earned value, at least to me.
Great follow up. Still don’t think the Play is the way to go with audiolab int amp, but the 6000a base model is an amazing bang for your buck int amp and as you said add your own streamer. Its the same compromise with Hegel int amps, you need to get a streamer if you want Roon. And some will say you can get all these things you want as an all in one that works in other brands, but either they jump up a lot in price or they don’t have the ‘sound’ you prefer. At the moment i like having seperate digital dac, ddc, streamer from my amp as the digital format is still moving along with great improvements and can just update that part of system when a big enough improvement happens. Where as my analogue side of my set up is different, turntable and phono amp it’s set and forget for me.
I would say the true best option in this scenario (if comparing Powernode to 6000A Play) would be pairing the 6000A (non play) with the Bluesound Node 2021. That is really the best of both worlds!
I think the most important thing here is that gap-less is always better. Theres no reason to want added gaps that were not the artists intentions. I find it almost disgraceful that on expensive audio gear that will market their sound reproduction will actively distort your music experience. Surely they have to be better than Spotify on a phone in all ways if they are literally a dedicated streaming device. If they can't do that, just sell an amp/dac and leave the streaming to someone else
Thanks for the important details. Nice review. It looks like that one of the most interesting combinations for “advanced beginner” )) right now would be Argon Audio Solo + Audiolab 6000a. Platform agnostic solution (Airplay, Spotify Connect, Chromecast) with fully hi-res chain for around 950 euro.
Your follow up speaks volumes for your honesty and desire to provide a fair and balanced opinion on products. I don't really see that you "missed something" if it wasn't in the user manual (plus that little transfer button isn't very obvious). From your explanation the reduction in gap doesn't offset the annoyance of having to stop the music everytime you want to add a track. I'm only experienced with Sonos for streaming but one of the best parts for me is the ability to listen to music whilst browsing for additional songs and adding them to the "live playlist" depending on my mood and taste at that time, having to stop playback everytime I wanted to add a track would render Transfer useless to me. I often start one track off and then build the rest of the queue as the track progresses.
Happy new Year. I wish more health and better ears and gear for all this year. I do work as a windows installer, and I know exactly how irritating even a 0.1mm of gap is. It must be sealed! It must be gapless so you block the sound out. I do understand that in the musical gapless streaming. As the traffic sounds and outdoor sounds irritates us when the window is not perfectly sealed, so does that 1-5 second gap between tracks to some people, and that absolutely respected. Its like getting a close back headphones and they dont block anything. " Got Gapless?"
Bought a 6000A Play, loved the sound but having used Sonos for years I found I just couldn’t get on with Play-Fi. Gapless not the issue, rather it was the trouble one needed to go through simply to get music out. The 6000 A Play has now gone to a new home (hopefully to someone with more patience). Now enjoying Roon, into a Sonos Port digitally into an Arcam SA20 then to Wharefedale Lintons. The fact that this works smoothly all the time means I can enjoy listening to music and am managing to resist the desire to “improve” the streamer. Love the channel John.
I listen to both DJ mixes and classical music, so I also feel strongly about gapless playback. I recently bought a 6000A (non Play) and an external streaming device (Argon Audio Solo). I'm very happy with them both, and even more happy after these couple of videos, that I didn't go for the 6000A Play instead.
Great video. You wouldn't believe how many listening hours I enjoyed of "Shpongle - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost" while working on making sure we had perfect gapless playback back in the Squeezebox days, 15 years ago (!) Getting it to work with LAME-encoded MP3s was a lot of fun. It was eye-opening on some music services when you could tell they had screwed up when encoding their audio files and lost critical gapless metadata. I want to say Rhapsody's 192k MP3 files were guilty of this. The devil is most certainly in the details, and it saddens me that any audio dev would be satisfied with any gaps like in this video. Currently bugging me are the gaps you get on Apple TV 4K on Dolby Atmos albums. Thankfully they manage it fine for lossless tracks.
I am so glad I got the CXN V2 instead as the Audiolab was a contender the CXN V2 just does streaming so well gapless no glitches and so much more. Don't understand why they can't get it right with the playfi.
Oh yep! The window analogy is so right! BUT overall it seems so cumbersome that it would still be a no go for any product using Play-Fi. In UX design, the technology must be out of the way, seamless and unobtrusive. These all seem like patching an initial wrong way of doing things.
LOVE the new sound dampaning panels! They actualky make your walls more interesting... almost like an art piece. As for the Audiolabs, thanks for bringing this issue up. Nobody likes a gap. Whether it's 1 second or 5. It's one thing to mind the gap at a station, but nobody wants to have to do it everytime they listen to music!
So, transfer mode is basically a half hearted workaround. I appreciate your honesty about missing the feature in the first place, but the problem remains.
The fact is software is making or breaking hifi today. And frankly I would prefer to stick to PC solutions for streaming. Hifi companies in general just dont do well.
Wow! What were the developers thinking🤔 you cannot browse music to add to your current playlist whilst in transfer mode! Why didn't they name it idiot mode. I love the way the audio lab amp only sounds but until they and or DTS play sort this out both gapless and permanent choice transfer mode. I will never buy a product that has it installed. Thanks John for highlighting this, I do hope that manufacturers start asking what do streaming customers want or value and bloody well take note.
I've been playing LPs for around 50 years now, and I've never once needed a software update to fix the gaps. Is it really so much to ask for 2022 digital technology to give us the same?
I have the 6000a Play, and I ended up buying a Cambridge Audio CXN V2 as a network streamer / DAC. Gapless playback, and also the DAC is considerably better than the one in the Audiolab.
After watching your vid on the 6000a play, I opted to get the amp only, I'm delighted with it. The sound improvement from my old amp is more than I expected. Great amp.
I returned my 6000A play because of the horrible play-fi app. Yes, the gaps are annoying, but also everytime you need to enable transfer and criticalmode. Why DTS? why? Why can Sonos do it, and why can Bluesound do it? Yamaha Musiccast can, even HEOS can do it i believe. Also te play-fi module crashed on my a few times within the two week trial i had it ( no sound, had to turn it off and on again). However the 6000A sound is really awesome. After this little adventure i bought a NAD C368 with bluesound module (with a discount, because the full price is to high imho for the C368) and it just works perfectly. Also beeing able to turn on the amp using the app is a nice touch. I think the C368 is a bit cleaner then the 6000A but i have a feeling is has a little less bass. (could be my imagination).
John, thanks for this honest, balanced and thorough review!! For me it's because of DTS Play-fi I'm NOT using Tidal or Qobuz anymore. That's a shame. For me DTS Play-fi just spoils the fun of trouble free listening to music, because that is what it's all about. I'm really sick and tired of clicking buttons, waiting....more waiting, more clicks, beginning all over again, pauzes and so on. I am using this wonderful amp for over 4 months now. I would have bought the 6000A instead of the 6000P and add another streamer. At the moment I'm using Apple Music (cd quality) and stream it using an old Apple Airport express (CD quality with the mini Toslink). This works fine! B.t.w. I mailed Audiolab about these DTS Play-fi problems and limitations, two times the last two months, but up until today no answer.
John, you've nailed it about Play-Fi...it's operational foibles are simply not at all acceptable. If such foibles are not addressed in such a cut-throat market, it'll be a death knell!
Hi John. Happy New Year to you Olaf and Jana. Here are my thoughts on this video and the preceding Audiolab video: 1. Please keep gapless playback as a criteria upon which you evaluate a streamer. I agree you don’t have to yammer on about it. But you should make a note about it and let us know. 2. This Audiolab unit is junk. There are too many “modes” to much buffering. You can’t browse music or the music stops! It is way to wonky! Who designed this thing?! Life is too short and there are other streaming amps out there that perform better and are better to use than this Audiolab. This review was artfully done. It was essentially a negative review without coming across as being negative. You were just truthful and laid the cards on the table so to speak. I would recommend sending this unit back to Audiolab and be done with it. Otherwise, you can give it as a “prize” to the person who has left you the most obscene, obnoxious and rude comment. Thanks for all your great work. Happy 2022!
Just listened to Seconds Out over Airplay (Macbook Air to Airport Express to a vintage Linn Classik/Kan combo) sounded great to these non audiophile ears.But most importantly it plays totally gapless which is so important to that LP.YES gapless is important and that's the reason I'm here as its finally time for me to do my 20 year upgrade.I was so close to pulling the pin on the Audiolab and this has totally changed my mind.As ever another great informative video, thanks John.
Thanks for this follow up. I thought your previous post was balanced and fair. You simply pointed out a system shortcoming. (I was surprised by your gapless poll, thought it would be an issue for more of us). You say you missed the ‘transfer mode’ button but was it clearly mentioned in the manual? If not, that is also a fail on the manufacturer’s side. Keep the great vids coming in 22.
Thanks for this John, it gives me comfort knowing that I made the right decision in opting for a Node 2i over a Play-Fi unit. My Rega Brio also happens to be Kallax-fi, but that’s not the reason I chose it over the non-streaming vanilla 6000A, I just preferred the sound it made.
Don't apologize about gapless topic 😉 I wanted to buy a new 6000 Play, because of the awesome sound quality confirmed by many tests and articles. But this is a deal breaker. Not just the gapless gap (haha) but the application weaknesses together. Audiolab should consider that a high quality hardwer must not paired with a buggy shitty software. -1000 bucks for Audiolab till they find a new sw supplier Big thanks for You to saving me from this torture!
It's hilarious how much research is required to buy a streaming amp which supports gapless playback. I owned a Naim Uniti Atom for years and when I bought it I didn't even know non-gapless existed - I got lucky then. Replacing it this year with more knowledge, so many products/ecosystems STILL don't do it with Tidal or other services like Qobuz. My shortlist included the Primare i15 (nope), Yamaha RN-803D (MusicCast - nope), NAD C399 (bluOS - yes), Roksan Attessa (bluOS - yes). I eventually settled on a Gato Dia-250s NPM which uses mConnect or Roon and does, but with mConnect you still have to enable it each time you open the app. Why? WHY???? Why would anyone not want gapless enabled, ever? Why would gapped playback be the DEFAULT? It's madness.
I don't understand, what is in the way for DTS to just introduce gapless playback? And why did they go out of their way to create this transfer feature instead of gapless?
Most likely, the problem is that they did not design for gapless when starting the software development. From my own work in consumer audio and related fields, I know that if the software architecture is not sufficiently flexible, or lacks the right underlying mechanisms, then gapless playback can be very hard to implement as a retrospective upgrade.
Unfortunately 8.1 does not work as it should on my 6000N. Made the Updates today. There are still gaps between the tracks when I‘m streaming from my Plex server (running on my iMac)via Play-Fi to the 6000N. Tried several other servers (Serviio and Audirvana) and the result was always the same.
I love your attitude towards HiFi 👍🏼 gapless matters to me because I love classical music. Kallax form factor does matter to me, I prefer traditional form factors like Mac and ARC. Cheers John
I use DTS Play-Fi (built into my Anthem AV processor) and find it only good for multi room audio (including volume control). The synchronization is excellent which I could not achieve with AirPlay, etc. The software is extremely slow, however, and transfer mode does not work during multi room playback. Obviously Bluesound is a better option, but requires additional financial investment unless you already have NAD equipment or Bluesound speakers.
Great vid. Ease-of-use is so important to me that I'd choose a lesser sounding player over the better one. Quick snappy response, browsing whilst listening, adding tracks in the process. What I saw here sounds like a nightmare that would prevent me from playing music as it's such a hassle to use. Luckily, there are many alternatives and I'll stick to my old Node 2 (not even the i), it just works.
Sadly "gapless" can't be ignored. Too many CD players these days don't do "gapless". I'm wanting to buy one under $600 and so far I've only found Denon and Cambridge Audio players that don't add a gap between tracks. The Yamaha CD-S303 looked great to me, but two people reported that yes, it adds a small (very small) gap between tracks. But the issue is that their should be NONE. I really liked the specs and capabilities of the Yamaha, with its USB input for lossless files, but not if it add ANY gaps. This is crazy. When we were buying CD players in the 1980s and 1990s this "issue" wasn't even in our minds. Players just played as they should - GAPLESSLY!
@@tobev I'm going to ask a support tech at Yamaha to find out for sure regarding the CD-S303. At least Cambridge specifies theirs is "gapless". Just ridiculous to have even consider this after all these years. Ugh.
@@tobev I just had a live chat with a Yamaha rep and the CD-S303 does NOT have gapless playback. Very aggravating. It is just beyond dumb that freaking CD players don't work as well as ones made in the 1980s...Inexcusable! Otherwise for $380 it has everything else you could want...great DAC (a Burr-Brown), a USB input for FLAC and other files, and even coax AND optical outputs for connecting to an external DAC if you ever wanted. Oh well, looks like the Cambridge Audio will be the way to go. Denon just bumped the price of their player by $30, so nope, not going to give them my money.
@@rosswarren436 wtf, my car stereo in my 2008 suzuki plays gapless and it can play 6 cds in a row. maybe i should sell it as the car as a CD "transport." it comes in silver too.
Just goes to prove that usability is actually the most important criteria when buying hifi gear. With today's technology there is a negligible difference between the sound quality of similarly priced gear.
Speaking from personal experience I would not recommend an Audiolab 6000A paired with the LS50 Metas. There is a sweet spot at mid volumes which sounds good, but low volumes lack all bass, and higher volumes are too harsh. The Audiolab just doesn't have the grunt to do the LS50's justice, or conversely, the LS50's are too power-hungry to understand what the 6000A can do with more efficient speakers.
100% agree. I tried that exact combo and the 6000 does no provide enough juice to properly drive the meta's across all volume levels. I had to return the 6000 and bought a 120w/c amp to ensure low level listening had body.
John, I found this video immensely helpful - my insomnia is now CURED ! ;) (ok - to be fair, gapless playback isn't particularly important for those of us who listen mostly to metal and hard rock)
My Pioneer vsx-933 starts playing within 8 seconds from standby, when I transfer Spotify to it from my LG V30 phone. Then the stream will go directly through the Pioneer. Really gapless (...) and in the best quality Spotify can offer. No issues. I can attest that. playing a live album of the Simple Minds lets me enjoy seamless applause from one track to the next. My Sony STR-DN 1080 plays well too, but it takes much more time to transfer the stream and sometimes needs retries. When playing, flawless as well. in the mean time this is relatively "old stuff" and not breaking the bank, but very satisfying, as are the Simple Minds. I think I can judge the quality after growing up with 40 years of experimenting and building audio stuff. however, alway with a limited budget.
One may or may not value gapless playback (that's fine). Being that said, not being able to do something that ancient technology was able to do it's kind of a weird thing ( IMHO). Anyway, it's really important to mention it in any review. That avoid falling down on expectations and most important, it keeps the review fair, objective and not biased. If You Don't care about gapless you could get the amp (it's great a sounding amp) if you care just be aware ... Honesty matters .... good for you John .
Whenever I play my local stations either using their own apps or myTuner I can close the app and the stations continue to play. This is how I listen to radio. Also I have a Kallax I had to "modify" by cutting 2 dividers to accommodate a CD player.
100% with you. No gapless is a deal breaker to me. 5 seconds is insulting! Being that both Roon and LMS can do gapless EVEN with Chromecast, whoever is doing their OWN hardware should be getting gapless right.
That "transfer" button is using the Apple and Google standard icon for "Share", aka the share sheet. I would have assumed that button enabled you to share the link to the song you're playing or a screenshot of the album artwork or something. Regardless, the concept of "transfer mode" is ridiculous. This should just work.
I’d love your 2 cents on the dac inside the bluesound. I own one for headphones only, with a separate burson amp (which is amazing). I just wonder how the dac inside the bluesound compares with separate dacs in the
Not having Gapless Playback is not acceptable for me. The last time it drove me crazy was on Windows Phone because they didn't have it. Never again would I accept that. I can't believe people spend so much money on streamers that can't handle this basic feature.
Hi John! It's possible to make playfi or basically any upnp player gapless with a little help from LMS and plugin called upnp bridge. If device has upnp implemented correctly, with upnp bridge turned on, your audiolab will be visible as squeeze player and should be also visible from roon as an endpoint.
I had ordered the Quad Artera Solus Play. I really liked the sound quality when I listened in the store. However, these videos learned me about the clunky Play-Fi. So I canceled the order, and went for the Lingdorf 1120 instead. That was a good move. I really like the lingdorf forthe sound quality and the clunky Play-fi woud have irritated me to the end.
I totally get the need for gapless in classical having played it for years, but I think classical is simply the prototypical example of a type of music that is less common these days where each song is a movement [part] of a whole. I can think of many popular music albums where this is the way, but imo it's become more common with the rise of streaming to not bother creating these types of albums given most people are not listening straight through anymore but are instead listening to single songs disconnected from what was around them.
**PLEASE READ CAREFULLY**
1) Got a question? Please ask it of the Darko.Audio UA-cam community (and not me) as I'm now busy making the NEXT video
2) All comments here are moderated by a third party: instagram.com/p/CTWcokaszpW/
3) Polite comments that advance the conversation are most welcome (but no URLs, please)
You are very polite about DTS Play-Fi. How on earth, in 2022, can dedicated streaming software not be gap less ? Try to listen to an opera recording with gaps in between, it ruins everything.
Nobody expects expensive hifi equipment to break Beatles-Abbey Road or Pink Floyd's DSOTM. You're right to be passionate about gapless because it's important.
6000A + Bluesound Node seems the way to go!
Exactly what I got myself for Christmas. Absolutely awesome combo!
Let us gapless fiends unite, and there be an end to it!
I just played The Wall on my apple tv and it was perfectly gapless - and lossless. Lovely.
A few years ago, I was looking for a network streaming player. Gapless playback is an absolute must. ( Pink Floyd fan etc etc).
Why is it after all this time, this issue is still rearing it's head???
Some serious high end manufacturers incorporating software that can't handle it, and still think it's acceptable to compromise with small, none intended breaks in what is recorded as a continuous piece of music.
I absolutely love the window example, helps me truly understand the importance of COMPLETE gap-less playback!
I gave away my 6000n just for the DTS play-fi app issues, I just couldn't gather enough patience to deal with it and got home a Node 2i which took care of all my grievance. Love your posts. Cheers!
... I was seriously about to purchase the Audiolab 6000A Play for my Christmas treat bit after your great Vlog I bought the Bluesound POWERNODE and John I’m so happy I did! It sounds amazing and streams without any problems or Gaps! 👍 ...
Good choice 👍
Yep did the same thing a couple of months ago. POWERNODE was my best purchase of 2021
Another revealing , balanced look at the state of play with gapless and non gapless products, thanks John , love the channel. Happy new year to you bud. 👍
I am completely with you regarding gapless playback. It is absolutely essential.
Hi John. Thanks for highlighting Gapless playback in these last two videos. I'm still in the HiFi stone age, listening to LP's, (LP12) CD's (AudioLab 6000CDT) and iTunes & Spotify (MacBook Pro via USB), and it's all as the maker intended. I mistakenly thought "gapless" applied to Spotify playlists (my 17yr old has a 4 sec crossfade on his account), but I now realise that it's about playback being a faithful reproduction of artist intent - I remember with Level 42 when we were compiling an album running order onto half inch tape back in the 80s, we would pay great attention to the gaps between tracks (or no gap sometimes), and I would attend the album cutting room sessions to ensure fidelity in all aspects. I have been putting off installing a streamer/CD ripper because of the learning curve (Roon), but as I mainly listen to a mix of Classical, Jazz, World and Electronica, and occasional Rock, Pop and Soul, this has been a cautionary tale. Dark Side or Innervisions with gaps? As with Atomkraft, Nein danke!!
genuinely happy with my bluesound. i dont have a kallax but the real estate it doesnt eat really helps.
Excellent sir. Such a breath a fresh air to hear/see content creators standing behind their videos and owning up to mistakes. Well done!
Thank you John for for correcting the review. As a consumer I highly value how you handle mistakes. It's not that you (or anyone) made a mistake, it's how you handle the mistake. I think you handled this one great. Sorry that it took you more time but you earned value, at least to me.
Great follow up. Still don’t think the Play is the way to go with audiolab int amp, but the 6000a base model is an amazing bang for your buck int amp and as you said add your own streamer. Its the same compromise with Hegel int amps, you need to get a streamer if you want Roon. And some will say you can get all these things you want as an all in one that works in other brands, but either they jump up a lot in price or they don’t have the ‘sound’ you prefer. At the moment i like having seperate digital dac, ddc, streamer from my amp as the digital format is still moving along with great improvements and can just update that part of system when a big enough improvement happens. Where as my analogue side of my set up is different, turntable and phono amp it’s set and forget for me.
I would say the true best option in this scenario (if comparing Powernode to 6000A Play) would be pairing the 6000A (non play) with the Bluesound Node 2021. That is really the best of both worlds!
What a time to be alive in 2022 to get gapless playback 😁
I think the most important thing here is that gap-less is always better. Theres no reason to want added gaps that were not the artists intentions. I find it almost disgraceful that on expensive audio gear that will market their sound reproduction will actively distort your music experience.
Surely they have to be better than Spotify on a phone in all ways if they are literally a dedicated streaming device. If they can't do that, just sell an amp/dac and leave the streaming to someone else
Thanks for the important details. Nice review. It looks like that one of the most interesting combinations for “advanced beginner” )) right now would be Argon Audio Solo + Audiolab 6000a. Platform agnostic solution (Airplay, Spotify Connect, Chromecast) with fully hi-res chain for around 950 euro.
Your follow up speaks volumes for your honesty and desire to provide a fair and balanced opinion on products. I don't really see that you "missed something" if it wasn't in the user manual (plus that little transfer button isn't very obvious). From your explanation the reduction in gap doesn't offset the annoyance of having to stop the music everytime you want to add a track. I'm only experienced with Sonos for streaming but one of the best parts for me is the ability to listen to music whilst browsing for additional songs and adding them to the "live playlist" depending on my mood and taste at that time, having to stop playback everytime I wanted to add a track would render Transfer useless to me. I often start one track off and then build the rest of the queue as the track progresses.
I just love the windows story with gaps, well done! .😂😂
Happy new Year. I wish more health and better ears and gear for all this year. I do work as a windows installer, and I know exactly how irritating even a 0.1mm of gap is. It must be sealed! It must be gapless so you block the sound out. I do understand that in the musical gapless streaming. As the traffic sounds and outdoor sounds irritates us when the window is not perfectly sealed, so does that 1-5 second gap between tracks to some people, and that absolutely respected. Its like getting a close back headphones and they dont block anything. " Got Gapless?"
Bought a 6000A Play, loved the sound but having used Sonos for years I found I just couldn’t get on with Play-Fi. Gapless not the issue, rather it was the trouble one needed to go through simply to get music out. The 6000 A Play has now gone to a new home (hopefully to someone with more patience).
Now enjoying Roon, into a Sonos Port digitally into an Arcam SA20 then to Wharefedale Lintons. The fact that this works smoothly all the time means I can enjoy listening to music and am managing to resist the desire to “improve” the streamer.
Love the channel John.
Your explanation about gappless playback is hilarious.:)
The fact that I have to enable Transfer mode every time, i would NEVER buy this product even if it sounds slightly better than the blusound.
Great analogy. Couldn’t agree more. Gaps of any size are a deal breaker.
Wow this is nuts! How on earth did they roll this out and think this user experience is OK?
I listen to both DJ mixes and classical music, so I also feel strongly about gapless playback. I recently bought a 6000A (non Play) and an external streaming device (Argon Audio Solo). I'm very happy with them both, and even more happy after these couple of videos, that I didn't go for the 6000A Play instead.
Great video. You wouldn't believe how many listening hours I enjoyed of "Shpongle - Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost" while working on making sure we had perfect gapless playback back in the Squeezebox days, 15 years ago (!) Getting it to work with LAME-encoded MP3s was a lot of fun. It was eye-opening on some music services when you could tell they had screwed up when encoding their audio files and lost critical gapless metadata. I want to say Rhapsody's 192k MP3 files were guilty of this. The devil is most certainly in the details, and it saddens me that any audio dev would be satisfied with any gaps like in this video. Currently bugging me are the gaps you get on Apple TV 4K on Dolby Atmos albums. Thankfully they manage it fine for lossless tracks.
I am so glad I got the CXN V2 instead as the Audiolab was a contender the CXN V2 just does streaming so well gapless no glitches and so much more. Don't understand why they can't get it right with the playfi.
Oh yep! The window analogy is so right! BUT overall it seems so cumbersome that it would still be a no go for any product using Play-Fi. In UX design, the technology must be out of the way, seamless and unobtrusive. These all seem like patching an initial wrong way of doing things.
Love the window gap analogy
Gapless matters to me. I love hearing you carry on about it.
LOVE the new sound dampaning panels! They actualky make your walls more interesting... almost like an art piece. As for the Audiolabs, thanks for bringing this issue up. Nobody likes a gap. Whether it's 1 second or 5. It's one thing to mind the gap at a station, but nobody wants to have to do it everytime they listen to music!
So, transfer mode is basically a half hearted workaround. I appreciate your honesty about missing the feature in the first place, but the problem remains.
The fact is software is making or breaking hifi today. And frankly I would prefer to stick to PC solutions for streaming. Hifi companies in general just dont do well.
Wow! What were the developers thinking🤔 you cannot browse music to add to your current playlist whilst in transfer mode! Why didn't they name it idiot mode. I love the way the audio lab amp only sounds but until they and or DTS play sort this out both gapless and permanent choice transfer mode. I will never buy a product that has it installed. Thanks John for highlighting this, I do hope that manufacturers start asking what do streaming customers want or value and bloody well take note.
I've been playing LPs for around 50 years now, and I've never once needed a software update to fix the gaps. Is it really so much to ask for 2022 digital technology to give us the same?
I have the 6000a Play, and I ended up buying a Cambridge Audio CXN V2 as a network streamer / DAC. Gapless playback, and also the DAC is considerably better than the one in the Audiolab.
After watching your vid on the 6000a play, I opted to get the amp only, I'm delighted with it. The sound improvement from my old amp is more than I expected. Great amp.
I returned my 6000A play because of the horrible play-fi app. Yes, the gaps are annoying, but also everytime you need to enable transfer and criticalmode. Why DTS? why? Why can Sonos do it, and why can Bluesound do it? Yamaha Musiccast can, even HEOS can do it i believe. Also te play-fi module crashed on my a few times within the two week trial i had it ( no sound, had to turn it off and on again). However the 6000A sound is really awesome.
After this little adventure i bought a NAD C368 with bluesound module (with a discount, because the full price is to high imho for the C368) and it just works perfectly. Also beeing able to turn on the amp using the app is a nice touch. I think the C368 is a bit cleaner then the 6000A but i have a feeling is has a little less bass. (could be my imagination).
shows greatness to admit an error, adds to your credibility- thanx
AS Always thank you for the video!
That user interface is shocking. Why would anyone want to use that?
John, thanks for this honest, balanced and thorough review!! For me it's because of DTS Play-fi I'm NOT using Tidal or Qobuz anymore. That's a shame. For me DTS Play-fi just spoils the fun of trouble free listening to music, because that is what it's all about. I'm really sick and tired of clicking buttons, waiting....more waiting, more clicks, beginning all over again, pauzes and so on. I am using this wonderful amp for over 4 months now. I would have bought the 6000A instead of the 6000P and add another streamer. At the moment I'm using Apple Music (cd quality) and stream it using an old Apple Airport express (CD quality with the mini Toslink). This works fine!
B.t.w. I mailed Audiolab about these DTS Play-fi problems and limitations, two times the last two months, but up until today no answer.
Interesting insights into John's process with this follow up vid. Nicely balanced coverage, I feel...
I can't wait to set up my system in my new apartment and start to play with the room correction aso. Cheers Darko, und frohes neues Jahr
!
Happy new year Darko :)
Got to be able to browse whilst playing thats for sure.
As ever, you're approach is spot on. Thanks for doing what you do 😁 - happy new year!
John, you've nailed it about Play-Fi...it's operational foibles are simply not at all acceptable. If such foibles are not addressed in such a cut-throat market, it'll be a death knell!
Every time you mentioned your dad being angry I just laughed. We all had that dad!
Hi John. Happy New Year to you Olaf and Jana. Here are my thoughts on this video and the preceding Audiolab video: 1. Please keep gapless playback as a criteria upon which you evaluate a streamer. I agree you don’t have to yammer on about it. But you should make a note about it and let us know. 2. This Audiolab unit is junk. There are too many “modes” to much buffering. You can’t browse music or the music stops! It is way to wonky! Who designed this thing?! Life is too short and there are other streaming amps out there that perform better and are better to use than this Audiolab. This review was artfully done. It was essentially a negative review without coming across as being negative. You were just truthful and laid the cards on the table so to speak. I would recommend sending this unit back to Audiolab and be done with it. Otherwise, you can give it as a “prize” to the person who has left you the most obscene, obnoxious and rude comment. Thanks for all your great work. Happy 2022!
Just listened to Seconds Out over Airplay (Macbook Air to Airport Express to a vintage Linn Classik/Kan combo) sounded great to these non audiophile ears.But most importantly it plays totally gapless which is so important to that LP.YES gapless is important and that's the reason I'm here as its finally time for me to do my 20 year upgrade.I was so close to pulling the pin on the Audiolab and this has totally changed my mind.As ever another great informative video, thanks John.
John, you are absolutely right: gaps - however short - are very annoying.
Sorry Audiolab, but you need to go back to the drawing table.
Thanks for this follow up. I thought your previous post was balanced and fair. You simply pointed out a system shortcoming. (I was surprised by your gapless poll, thought it would be an issue for more of us). You say you missed the ‘transfer mode’ button but was it clearly mentioned in the manual? If not, that is also a fail on the manufacturer’s side. Keep the great vids coming in 22.
Thanks for this John, it gives me comfort knowing that I made the right decision in opting for a Node 2i over a Play-Fi unit. My Rega Brio also happens to be Kallax-fi, but that’s not the reason I chose it over the non-streaming vanilla 6000A, I just preferred the sound it made.
Don't apologize about gapless topic 😉
I wanted to buy a new 6000 Play, because of the awesome sound quality confirmed by many tests and articles.
But this is a deal breaker. Not just the gapless gap (haha) but the application weaknesses together.
Audiolab should consider that a high quality hardwer must not paired with a buggy shitty software.
-1000 bucks for Audiolab till they find a new sw supplier
Big thanks for You to saving me from this torture!
It's hilarious how much research is required to buy a streaming amp which supports gapless playback. I owned a Naim Uniti Atom for years and when I bought it I didn't even know non-gapless existed - I got lucky then. Replacing it this year with more knowledge, so many products/ecosystems STILL don't do it with Tidal or other services like Qobuz. My shortlist included the Primare i15 (nope), Yamaha RN-803D (MusicCast - nope), NAD C399 (bluOS - yes), Roksan Attessa (bluOS - yes). I eventually settled on a Gato Dia-250s NPM which uses mConnect or Roon and does, but with mConnect you still have to enable it each time you open the app. Why? WHY???? Why would anyone not want gapless enabled, ever? Why would gapped playback be the DEFAULT? It's madness.
I don't understand, what is in the way for DTS to just introduce gapless playback? And why did they go out of their way to create this transfer feature instead of gapless?
Most likely, the problem is that they did not design for gapless when starting the software development. From my own work in consumer audio and related fields, I know that if the software architecture is not sufficiently flexible, or lacks the right underlying mechanisms, then gapless playback can be very hard to implement as a retrospective upgrade.
DTS Play Fi 8.1 update is supposedly gapless, not available yet with iOS but is on Android. It needs a Darko review!
Unfortunately 8.1 does not work as it should on my 6000N. Made the Updates today. There are still gaps between the tracks when I‘m streaming from my Plex server (running on my iMac)via Play-Fi to the 6000N. Tried several other servers (Serviio and Audirvana) and the result was always the same.
I love your attitude towards HiFi 👍🏼 gapless matters to me because I love classical music. Kallax form factor does matter to me, I prefer traditional form factors like Mac and ARC. Cheers John
Fantastic#30 - Bass for beginners (and beyond) podcast!!
I use DTS Play-Fi (built into my Anthem AV processor) and find it only good for multi room audio (including volume control). The synchronization is excellent which I could not achieve with AirPlay, etc. The software is extremely slow, however, and transfer mode does not work during multi room playback. Obviously Bluesound is a better option, but requires additional financial investment unless you already have NAD equipment or Bluesound speakers.
Satellite Serenade, one of the best.
Very well articulated. Love your views.
This is why I love SACDs!😀
I was initially really keen on the 6000A Play but reading up on DTS Play-Fi killed it for me - no sale.
Great vid. Ease-of-use is so important to me that I'd choose a lesser sounding player over the better one. Quick snappy response, browsing whilst listening, adding tracks in the process. What I saw here sounds like a nightmare that would prevent me from playing music as it's such a hassle to use. Luckily, there are many alternatives and I'll stick to my old Node 2 (not even the i), it just works.
Gapless playback is absolutely essential. Interested on your Planar 8 thoughts also... Cheers!
Sadly "gapless" can't be ignored. Too many CD players these days don't do "gapless". I'm wanting to buy one under $600 and so far I've only found Denon and Cambridge Audio players that don't add a gap between tracks. The Yamaha CD-S303 looked great to me, but two people reported that yes, it adds a small (very small) gap between tracks. But the issue is that their should be NONE. I really liked the specs and capabilities of the Yamaha, with its USB input for lossless files, but not if it add ANY gaps. This is crazy. When we were buying CD players in the 1980s and 1990s this "issue" wasn't even in our minds. Players just played as they should - GAPLESSLY!
I'd never considered some CD players add gaps. That's ridiculous, no matter how small they are.
@@tobev I'm going to ask a support tech at Yamaha to find out for sure regarding the CD-S303. At least Cambridge specifies theirs is "gapless". Just ridiculous to have even consider this after all these years. Ugh.
@@tobev I just had a live chat with a Yamaha rep and the CD-S303 does NOT have gapless playback. Very aggravating. It is just beyond dumb that freaking CD players don't work as well as ones made in the 1980s...Inexcusable!
Otherwise for $380 it has everything else you could want...great DAC (a Burr-Brown), a USB input for FLAC and other files, and even coax AND optical outputs for connecting to an external DAC if you ever wanted. Oh well, looks like the Cambridge Audio will be the way to go. Denon just bumped the price of their player by $30, so nope, not going to give them my money.
@@rosswarren436 wtf, my car stereo in my 2008 suzuki plays gapless and it can play 6 cds in a row. maybe i should sell it as the car as a CD "transport." it comes in silver too.
🤗 THANKS JOHN …FOR THE DETAILS 👍😍😍😍
John, you are a man of integrity, humility and a certain je ne sais quoi.
Just goes to prove that usability is actually the most important criteria when buying hifi gear. With today's technology there is a negligible difference between the sound quality of similarly priced gear.
Yep. I said exactly that without saying exactly that. 😆
Kallax-fi is the way to go, and less boxes ! Nice video by the way.
Speaking from personal experience I would not recommend an Audiolab 6000A paired with the LS50 Metas. There is a sweet spot at mid volumes which sounds good, but low volumes lack all bass, and higher volumes are too harsh. The Audiolab just doesn't have the grunt to do the LS50's justice, or conversely, the LS50's are too power-hungry to understand what the 6000A can do with more efficient speakers.
A great pairing with Omega speakers Super Alnico Monitors (95db)
100% agree. I tried that exact combo and the 6000 does no provide enough juice to properly drive the meta's across all volume levels. I had to return the 6000 and bought a 120w/c amp to ensure low level listening had body.
I use an Audiolab 6000T with Kef LS50W2's and that combination works pretty well.
So in a general sense, the team at DTS used to install windows, went broke, and now do streaming software...
Love the videos, mostly since I have a taste for electronic music, I’ve gotten several just from your videos, thanks
Dude! I had never used this feature. Thanks.
John, I found this video immensely helpful - my insomnia is now CURED ! ;)
(ok - to be fair, gapless playback isn't particularly important for those of us who listen mostly to metal and hard rock)
I'm a black metal and doom listener and there are many tracks that fade into the next one. Gapless would annoy me in the extreme.
My Pioneer vsx-933 starts playing within 8 seconds from standby, when I transfer Spotify to it from my LG V30 phone. Then the stream will go directly through the Pioneer. Really gapless (...) and in the best quality Spotify can offer. No issues. I can attest that. playing a live album of the Simple Minds lets me enjoy seamless applause from one track to the next. My Sony STR-DN 1080 plays well too, but it takes much more time to transfer the stream and sometimes needs retries. When playing, flawless as well. in the mean time this is relatively "old stuff" and not breaking the bank, but very satisfying, as are the Simple Minds. I think I can judge the quality after growing up with 40 years of experimenting and building audio stuff. however, alway with a limited budget.
NAD C399 review...pleeeeaaase
One may or may not value gapless playback (that's fine). Being that said, not being able to do something that ancient technology was able to do it's kind of a weird thing ( IMHO). Anyway, it's really important to mention it in any review. That avoid falling down on expectations and most important, it keeps the review fair, objective and not biased. If You Don't care about gapless you could get the amp (it's great a sounding amp) if you care just be aware ... Honesty matters .... good for you John .
Whenever I play my local stations either using their own apps or myTuner I can close the app and the stations continue to play. This is how I listen to radio. Also I have a Kallax I had to "modify" by cutting 2 dividers to accommodate a CD player.
100% with you. No gapless is a deal breaker to me. 5 seconds is insulting!
Being that both Roon and LMS can do gapless EVEN with Chromecast, whoever is doing their OWN hardware should be getting gapless right.
That "transfer" button is using the Apple and Google standard icon for "Share", aka the share sheet. I would have assumed that button enabled you to share the link to the song you're playing or a screenshot of the album artwork or something.
Regardless, the concept of "transfer mode" is ridiculous. This should just work.
You taught me to hate windows.
I love FLAC music files !
I’d love your 2 cents on the dac inside the bluesound. I own one for headphones only, with a separate burson amp (which is amazing). I just wonder how the dac inside the bluesound compares with separate dacs in the
Not having Gapless Playback is not acceptable for me. The last time it drove me crazy was on Windows Phone because they didn't have it.
Never again would I accept that. I can't believe people spend so much money on streamers that can't handle this basic feature.
When do we get to buy the #gapless T-shirt?
Right about here: darkoaudio.creator-spring.com/listing/got-gapless 😆
I really like the NAD M10 for gapless
I also own the NAD M10 (Version 1) and highly recommended it!
Hi John! It's possible to make playfi or basically any upnp player gapless with a little help from LMS and plugin called upnp bridge. If device has upnp implemented correctly, with upnp bridge turned on, your audiolab will be visible as squeeze player and should be also visible from roon as an endpoint.
Thanks for the update ✌️ as it stands this is not for me I would be annoyed all the time using this.
I had ordered the Quad Artera Solus Play. I really liked the sound quality when I listened in the store. However, these videos learned me about the clunky Play-Fi. So I canceled the order, and went for the Lingdorf 1120 instead. That was a good move. I really like the lingdorf forthe sound quality and the clunky Play-fi woud have irritated me to the end.
Gap less is important for opera and musicals playback
You can't browse and listen at the same time? What the what???? All I do is browse and listen at the same time. That's the fun of streaming!
Steven Barall totally agree, it’s a fail all around for this
I’m surprised we are still talking about gapless playback I thought we sorted that out already.
I totally get the need for gapless in classical having played it for years, but I think classical is simply the prototypical example of a type of music that is less common these days where each song is a movement [part] of a whole. I can think of many popular music albums where this is the way, but imo it's become more common with the rise of streaming to not bother creating these types of albums given most people are not listening straight through anymore but are instead listening to single songs disconnected from what was around them.