Every video of Darko is a 'Planet Earth' documentary of hi end...I suck every info and feel privileged to follow JD. I enjoyed today's video totally. This man from Primare said very interesting things about gapless p/back & streaming. I also liked - I must say- the camera angles of Jana; I thought I was present in this cafeteria. Thank you John & Co for these exceptional little jewels.
Remember how your heart still misses a beat if you listen to a song on CD you used to have on a tape you recorded from the radio where out of nowhere there was a beep from the news or traffic alert or jerk just talking into the song? Gaps in musical flows are just that. Showstoppers. Heartstoppers.
I’m a newcomer to your videos and I have to say that are discussions like that that keep my attention high. Facing with a positive attitude such questions is what really we can call audiophilia. Thank you for sharing John.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: trying to listen to an opera that is not playing gapless is like missing your step on the stairs. It breaks the experience immediately. It was one of the reasons why I picked Roon to provide my music environment.
Never really paid attention to Primare. But what a nice and knowledgeable guy, with clear vision and approach. Makes me want to listen to his products!
I bought my first MP3 player (a Creative unit if I remember) back in 2002. As an EDM fan it drove me nuts that I couldn’t get gapless playback, and I used to manually process the files to enable it. I’ve long since got out of the habit of listening to anything other than single MP3’s or podcasts, so I’m STAGGERED that this is still an issue today! Seems unbelievable that this issue that affects so much music has not been fixed. Kudos to you for this enlightening video
Like you, I'm astonished that in 2019, we're still talking about bit-perfect and gapless playback as features that can't just simply be assumed. To me, the main failing of Amazon Music HD is the lack of bit-perfect playback on pretty much any platform. I have not investigated gapless, but if they can't get bit-perfect working, I imagine gapless is an issue as well. Hoping that 2020 will be the year that we all get this right. Thanks for an interesting interview and insight into a product that may help to solve this.
I don’t use Amazon Music but gapless is not easily expected in the last 20 years I’ve been asking. I’ve got the Cowon Plenue 1 many years ago playing gapless perfectly but heard that A&K flagship at $3,000+ may still have stability problems in gapless when I researched last year? Not sure about now but definitely not taking for granted, not even in coming few years!
What a great person Mr Medalen is for Primare, such passion for music. This is a nice product for Primare, so hopefully a more high end version will come out later which is easier used with Roon and high Rez files!
The good thing about the current state of music reproduction, is that you can basically do anything and everything - analog, digital, streaming, horns, Edison cylinders... mix and match to your hearts content. It may not necessarily work together right out of the box, but the possibilities are endless.
Gapless is essential for me. As mentioned in the vid, DSOTM, Abbey Road, Tool plus so many more that I have listened to for the past 45 years. If only Spotify would allow Roon integration
Fascinating! I hadn’t realised gap less playback was such a difficult problem to solve with streaming on the basis that if CD can do it why not streaming? Of course it’s essential. I can’t figure out how to make Tidal gaplesss so still prefer playing CDs. Streaming is attractive but it’s easy to have your mind blown by the endless complexity and range of options.... 🤯
This is very interesting and something I'd love to try out in my system. Being able to get ROON to work with my Naim SuperUniti, which does not have roon support and sadly never will. I know Bluesound makes a similar product, but I've read mixed reviews regarding sound quality with that. Great video as always Mr Darko. Hope you enjoyed Poland.
The gap is definitly annoying with live recordings when the audience is clapping and cheering between songs. Gapless playback is a godsent for those recordings.
John, what a neat little box that does the gapless thing without an eye blink. Good stuff. I have made gapless CDs before and didn’t think about it. Streaming gapless isn’t that easy, lots of handshaking going on. That’s okay as long as it works. Maybe you’ll do a follow up at your place? Okay?
I don't do streaming yet, but very close to jumping in..... and I never even knew this was an issue. I am shocked that it still is! It just shows how little these services really know or care about the listening experience, or they'd have solved it years ago.
Well, using the np5 with tidal connect is NOT gapless on my device. Am I doing something wrong? I guess its not tidal connect but chromecast protocoll. That sucks, hope native tidal gets implemented for gapless playback via tidal connect!
He's talking about the 2 second silence between tracks on most commercial CD's and on pretty much all commercial LP's as well, though some LP's they segue between songs by blending in the "gap area, such as Flying and Blue Jay Way on the Magical Mystery Tour LP by the Beatles and I've reconstructed it by simply keeping those two as one track but in the past when I had Nero Burning Rom for burning CD's, I did a child's record, the soundtrack to the 1964 Walt Disney film, a Child's Introduction to Melody (1964) and it was one complete side sans gaps. I simply captured each side as one file, did any processing needed, then went in and split them at natural points in the recording, as tracks so you can still index them, but they were burned without gaps for continuous playback of the ENTIRE record, but on CD and it works that way quite well. Trick is to be intentional about doing it to make it work, and it does require a bit more work, but well worth it when the situation calls for it. So as you play track one, it seamlessly moves to track 2 without you ever knowing it, unless you looked at the display to see you are on track 2. Except here, he's also inferring doing this with different digital formats for a seamless playback, which is different than simply creating a gapless playback on a CD.
I’m baffled too. Winamp had a setting for removing the 2 second gap between tracks. I could play music from another pc (network storage) and it would still play gapless. Just tested new tool album on Spotify between invincible and legion inoculant music played seamlessly. If I bought a high end network streamer, Is there a risk that it won’t play back gapless?! Edit: in addition, when I used to burn CDs there was an option to remove the two second gap between tracks, all CD players I put the CD into would play without gaps. So basically it sounds like the issue is with some hardware uPNP streamers.
I can't image listing to a Voices from the Lake Album without gapless playback. I was actually surprised that Spotify is able to play gapless while streaming, but not if you play tracks stored localy on your drive. Does anyone know why that is? So I use Foobar for that now, but wished Spotify could to it too.
Yes, Anthony, you can rip a CD into one, continuous music file using iTunes..... just as the artists intended it to be heard. It's a bit obscure. You have to a) select all the tracks, b) find the little gear-icon and c) choose "Join CD Tracks", before you rip it. Mr. Darko is correct that with certain albums (Dark Side, and Quicksilver's Happy Trails are two that come to mind), a continuous rip is essential.
I bought an Arcam streamer which uses Play Fi . Nobody told me it didn't play gapless. My first listen to it was Quadrophinia. The 5 second delay kicked in. I haven't used it since. When you go onto the Play Fi forums everybody is asking the question When will it play gapless? 1 year later it is still not resolved and the Arcam streamer sits dormant on the hi Fi shelf. It does my head in!!
Thanks for covering this very important issue in detail. I have found that the best test of gapless playback is Evgeny Kissin playing Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor Wo0 80. It is one continuous piece of piano virtuosity and must be played gapless. Many of the 32 tracks are as little as 11 seconds long, not much time for the streaming system to buffer the next track. It is a good test. You can listen to it on Tidal tidal.com/browse/album/77576289 or on Spotify open.spotify.com/album/6i5EFh77GP8mbzmAys4DgP
Not sure if it's common knowledge or not but it appears AmazonHD music streams gapless. 5 albums today all good. The 1st one being one John mentions in another video; Close Combined by Richie Hawtin. Equinox by JMJ also sounds perfect!
When I research to buy a music playback device and it doesn’t list gapless playback as a feature, I just rule it out! Simple! This rule saved a lot of money for me last 2 decades cos it’s hard to find things to buy!
John: Now that I read your Darko.Audio article on the NP5, I seem to understand it does not support connecting a DAC over USB. However, the Primare literature seems to indicate this is possible. Which is it? Thx.
Miguel, if I can step in, thanks for the input as it seems I need to revise the literature for greater clarity. For here new, the NP5 Prisma is a network player only, and does not have a built in DAC (needs to be connected to a digital input). The SC15 Prisma is both network player and DAC (as well as preamp), Terry
@@DarkoAudio In this doc, on the second page, I interpreted a DAC was used in the USB-A connector, but then I see at the end of the doc this is clarified: the rates supported are INPUT rates (ie file rates/formats). Thx. I really wish they could support USB DACs. www.primare.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/NP5-Prisma-Design-Brief.pdf
@@PrimareAB Thank you Terry. I understand the NP5 does not have a DAC in it. What I was not clear about is whether I can connect an external DAC over USB - reading more carefully the literature is clear that the digital outputs are SPDIF over coax or toslink, not USB (which is an input for a hard drive)
@@westernartifact580sorry for the late response, Amazon Music is available with Chromecast, but not HD. We expect that as the service is more fully rolled out (only available now in US, UK, Germany, and Japan) that other features will be added, including HD on Chromecast.
I actually didn't know this was a thing. I'm trying to decide which direction to take in steaming hi-fi (I'm using SoundCloud and Bandcamp for finding new music and only spend money on vinyl or gigs) and if gap-less is still a challenge, I might hold out a bit longer before investing in steaming hardware
is there a way to do gapless playback with streaming from google play music or youtube music? i love spotify but i get google music free with youtube red so it’s hard for me to justify a spotify subscription 🤷🏻♂️ obviously i’m no audiophile but damn these youtubers just when i think im out they pull me back in😡🤯
If someone with the power to decide "gapless or not" in products and solutions doesn't get why it actually IS a big deal, they are yet another example of overpaid and underskilled.
regarding Apple music if crossfade is enabled and set to 1s (via playback preferences) it is almost gapless? tried it on Dark Side of the moon Ok for me but would like other peoples views ?
At the moment I'm looking for a suitable streamer that doesn't break the bank and luckily "found" the NP5. I'm excited about a streamer that offers Roon, Airplay, Chromecast and gapless DLNA in one device for a price of under 500€. So far this is to my knowledge the only streamer with such a huge feature set which delivers this at this price point. In your article you mention that you had requested a review device, I would be very interested to hear what you think about the device. You don't happen to have a review planned in the next days, do you? 🤣
I've been using Google Play Music ever since it came out, so I didn't realize this was still an issue as Google Play Music plays gaplessly to a Chromecast.
Came across this issue recently when I thought I’d try out the UA-cam Music app....one of my favourites is Equinox by JMJ and it was horrible listing to the gaps that were added in.....same with Pink Floyd. After the free trial I won’t be sending any business their way!
I feel that I have to say that the filming on this video is top notch, not that it’s normally poor or anything like it, but to me it comes across very professional, as if a experienced BBC cameraman was behind the lens. Non gapless is very annoying. i.e. PSB, INTROSPECTIVE T1 into T2, love that Thunder then the bass synth line kicks in. Totally kills the moment if there’s a gap.
As someone who's been a fan of electronic ambient music for a while now, I say gapless is absolutely necessary. A lot of ambient music has songs that are meant to flow together to create one big seamless experience. And hearing gaps is very jarring and ruins that experience. Faulty gapless will ruin a DAP for me.
Logitech Media Server and Squeezebox players support a pretty good implementation of gapless. They also support a good cross-fade too. I have mine set up to play albums gaplessly and playlists with cross-fade. Works pretty well.
So it's theoretically possible for Spotify and Tidal to work a little bit harder and make it work? I've complained lengthy to both of them about gapless playback on Chromecast devices, to no avail :(
Gapless playback is definitely important. However, by and large I play local files/Tidal/Qobuz over Roon to a Roon endpoint, so this is not an issue for me or anyone using Roon. However, for me in particular the killer feature is Chromecast Audio gapless playback connected over USB to my DAC.
Waut, wait, wait... CD's play gaplessley? What am i missing? They're digital audio--lossless or not, its a "sample" based technology. Could someone elaborate?
My bad. Gapless is usually used to describe the encoding applied to a digital file. Apparently, they just want to know why there's a second between tracks...
You're looking at it as digital vs analog. You're thinking "gaps" as in digital sampling - or "gaps" as in the spaces between samples. That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about the very audible "gaps" BETWEEN tracks while the software loads the next song to be played.
A multitrack CD doesn't contain separate data files for each track, CDs contain one data stream with an index that describes to the player where in the data each track starts.
I have many CD's that play all the way through without any gaps. Dj mixes such as this is jungle and micky finn at dreamscape. Metal albums such as trivium ascendancy and black Sabbath's first album. I have others that have a couple of second gaps that count down between tracks. Dire straits brothers in arms is a good example of this.
I think it depends on how the album is mixed/mastered. More so in live recordings, but also some studio albums. There isn’t a gap in sound between songs.
Hi John Darko, For me gapless playback is a must have, unfortunately in HEGEL's products at their UPnP platform doesn’t have that feature and it seam in the near future not going to happen… For now they are all focus in Roon instead gapless playback and that for me is a shame… I know you like HEGEL (I do also, have an H190 myself) but they are like very old kind of a company, they moving so slow in costumers directions…
Just had this with cd players. I thought it was standard that CDs played back gapless. Not so. Cheaper ( all I'm buying) machines often not standard. Loved the sound of the Tangent CD2 but not only did it insert gaps, ruining Father of the Bride. But also clipped Quarter or half a second from the beginning of tracks on CDs that had gaps! Going back. Teac cd 650p - plays gapless, digital out to Schitt Modi. But not as crisp as the Tangent... 🙁 But the butchery of classic tunes. It's got to go, more a shame as it also looks great!
Who remembers indexing on CDs? Almost no labels took advantage of it, so many multi-segment ochestral pieces were simply stamped as a single track so that they would be seamless when played through from start to finish. Indexing allowed you to jump directly to individual parts.
So weird! I've never met a CD player that inserted gaps. When CDs were the main music medium the gaps were down to how it was written / burned to the CD.
Chromecast Audio plays gapless with Roon. You know this. You say it in your video on the Chromecast ua-cam.com/video/qX2LbNfMAS4/v-deo.html blog.roonlabs.com/chromecast-support-in-roon/ With audio-only devices (like Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, and Chromecast Audio) you can now enjoy gapless high-resolution music (up to 96kHz/24-bit) from Roon.
Of course gapless playback is a necessity. I have found hundreds of albums in Deezer that I'm not able to find on Tidal, but I had to leave Deezer because they have no gapless playback in their apps (iOS or macOS). In the other hand, I don't see myself buying an special gadget to get gapless playback. It's something all the streaming services should be offering in their apps.
The diameter of his glasses is almost the same diameter as his logo......hum....and in a weird rearrangement of the ark of the logo, almost resembles the ark between his lenses....hum...gapless?
Not all albums were mastered that way. As they say with something like Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, the tracks roll into each other seamlessly. Some albums were mastered to run as a continuous thing.
There are many albums where songs are meant to flow seamlessly together. Live recordings are a good example. Another good example is a lot of ambient music where there may be individual tracks but are really meant to be listened to together as a whole, sounding more like one big song (Leaving Home by Solar Fields is my favorite album in this genre and serves as a perfect example). CDs never had a problem with this; you can listen to an entire live concert without hearing any gaps, but can still choose songs.
Sounds like Primare is going down the same road as dCS of developing in-house playback software and control point - Mosaic in the case of dCS. I recently moved over from a Chord DSX to a Bartok and found that BubbleuPnP no longer played gapless from Minimserver on my NAS. The reasom given is that the Bartok is not a true uPnP renderer so will only play gaplessly with Mosaic. This is fine but Mosaic does not have (yet) comparable features to Bubble and it also means that you are locked into a single player (JRiver Gizmo is also not gapless). As a point of principle, I struggle with propietry technology that restricts choice in this way but maybe the other benefits (that dCS claim) are worth the trade-off.
Hegel H360 + Bubble UPNP works fine for gapless. Playback from NAS, Qobuz cd quality (cloud),... I would love to see a review from Hegel H390/590 based on playback from bubble upnp only.
I’m curious because while gapless is essential I haven’t had an issue since mid 2000s. I mean I’ve got issues with chromecast just stopping partway through an album, but assume that’s mainly crappy Australia-net. Between tracks idk maybe it’s the software I use. Obviously I’ve steered clear of NAS too
I think the issue of gapless is because straming bcame very popular. When I started steramin over 10 years ago when it was not so popular and there was only few streamesr on the market, no one imagined that that there might be extra silence between songs. I used Linn and Logitech. Both were gapless by design. I was not aware there is gapless issue for almost 10 years. Now I hear people has the gapless issue. It is because today we have many steramers and most of them are designed in wrong way. somehing we could not imagine 12 years ago. So if there was no gapless issues then, why it is an issue today? WTF.
before Linn and Squezebox I ripped my CDs into one FLAC file and cue file with description, and it was perfect for foobar2000 but then I splitted it to songs because of tagging. keping one file for whole album is also an option for gapless but then software must read the embeded or external cue file
I used to master albums at a studio in Denver, using Wavelab to lay out master discs. Saw pretty early on the 2 second gaptastrophe coming as people ripped and burned with tools that never even asked the question, let alone let you adjust gaps. Seamless transitions are absolutely critical for many recordings.
Frankly I’d be embarrassed if I was Primare and they have only just got gapless in their products. My Squeezebox Touch I had 10 years ago did gapless! And I bet the even older Squeezebox’s did it before then too. My Node 2i also does gapless though I don’t recall checking explicitly for that functionality when I bought it - I just assumed it would given we’re in 2019!
using Bubble upnp with a Melco N100 is a nightmare,huge gaps between tracks.Try Mike Oldfield/Songs of distant earth with gaps- horrible,absolutely has to be gapless.Same with the Floyd/The Wall.
This is not a new issue. Poor implementations of the UPnP / DLNA protocols are all over the place. OpenHome solved this years ago. Proper UPnP / DLNA implementations is available from products that got the right attention to detail. Many companies just buy a network card with streaming software from a 3rd party with questionable quality. I have no clue why Darko just now remembered to address this. He totally blinked on that when reviewing the H590 from Hegel.
Of course it's not a new issue. I have written about it twice (prior to this) on Darko.Audio but I can't tackle all the issues all of the time. Neither is this issue isolated to UPnP. Chromecast isn't gapless and many DAPs aren't gapless. And you are correct: I don't test UPNP when reviewing a high end streamer because there are more important issues to tackle and only 15-20mins to cover them in.
All interesting but gapless playback itself is not new. Now, I've never seen it on streaming, but it was a feature on some CD players in the mid to late 80's as my late father's first CD player was a compact sized component single disc CD player from Sony that had a button to play gapless or not but so far I've not seen it on anything else since then. Mind you, that was for CD only though playback. I have created gapless playback for CD's I was making by not choosing the gap option in Nero burning Rom for a CD project that was digitizing a Disneyland records soundtrack to a Child's Introduction to Melody (Walt Disney Films, 1964) and the record was entirely gapless for each side and I was able to replicate it verbatim to CD by telling Nero no gaps and splitting the large file for each side up at natural points and thus retain indexing as needed, but be able to play the entire CD as if one track so again, it's not a new idea, just now being able to make it work with different streamers, formats, bit/sample rates etc and do it seamlessly. The CD project was done in the mid Aughts, BTW.
Backstory: darko.audio/2019/11/the-battle-for-gapless-playback-with-primare/
Every video of Darko is a 'Planet Earth' documentary of hi end...I suck every info and feel privileged to follow JD.
I enjoyed today's video totally. This man from Primare said very interesting things about gapless p/back & streaming.
I also liked - I must say- the camera angles of Jana; I thought I was present in this cafeteria.
Thank you John & Co for these exceptional little jewels.
Remember how your heart still misses a beat if you listen to a song on CD you used to have on a tape you recorded from the radio where out of nowhere there was a beep from the news or traffic alert or jerk just talking into the song?
Gaps in musical flows are just that. Showstoppers. Heartstoppers.
I’m a newcomer to your videos and I have to say that are discussions like that that keep my attention high. Facing with a positive attitude such questions is what really we can call audiophilia. Thank you for sharing John.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: trying to listen to an opera that is not playing gapless is like missing your step on the stairs. It breaks the experience immediately. It was one of the reasons why I picked Roon to provide my music environment.
Never really paid attention to Primare. But what a nice and knowledgeable guy, with clear vision and approach. Makes me want to listen to his products!
I bought my first MP3 player (a Creative unit if I remember) back in 2002. As an EDM fan it drove me nuts that I couldn’t get gapless playback, and I used to manually process the files to enable it. I’ve long since got out of the habit of listening to anything other than single MP3’s or podcasts, so I’m STAGGERED that this is still an issue today! Seems unbelievable that this issue that affects so much music has not been fixed. Kudos to you for this enlightening video
Gapless playback a neccesity?....
Absolutely
I couldn't stop staring at his tiny glasses.
Looks fly as fuk
Like you, I'm astonished that in 2019, we're still talking about bit-perfect and gapless playback as features that can't just simply be assumed. To me, the main failing of Amazon Music HD is the lack of bit-perfect playback on pretty much any platform. I have not investigated gapless, but if they can't get bit-perfect working, I imagine gapless is an issue as well. Hoping that 2020 will be the year that we all get this right. Thanks for an interesting interview and insight into a product that may help to solve this.
I don’t use Amazon Music but gapless is not easily expected in the last 20 years I’ve been asking. I’ve got the Cowon Plenue 1 many years ago playing gapless perfectly but heard that A&K flagship at $3,000+ may still have stability problems in gapless when I researched last year? Not sure about now but definitely not taking for granted, not even in coming few years!
At the moment, in Germany, using Iphone 8 and standard amazon music, listening to DSOTM, it`s gapless. (2011 remastered version), IOS 13.1.3.
playing DSOTM right now on Amazon Music HD and yes it is gapless
Agree 100% Gapless should be standard. Period.
Nice one, Terry's a good guy, always enjoy chatting to him at the Bristol show. His room always sounds great with music I like as well.. Thanks John.
What a great person Mr Medalen is for Primare, such passion for music.
This is a nice product for Primare, so hopefully a more high end version will come out later which is easier used with Roon and high Rez files!
Gapless playback is a necessity. I am happy to see that Primare has done the job!
Pink Floyd and Tool mentioned in the same sentence. A like is obligatory
Mind the gap!
Good interview :-)
The good thing about the current state of music reproduction, is that you can basically do anything and everything - analog, digital, streaming, horns, Edison cylinders... mix and match to your hearts content. It may not necessarily work together right out of the box, but the possibilities are endless.
Gapless is essential for me. As mentioned in the vid, DSOTM, Abbey Road, Tool plus so many more that I have listened to for the past 45 years. If only Spotify would allow Roon integration
Fascinating! I hadn’t realised gap less playback was such a difficult problem to solve with streaming on the basis that if CD can do it why not streaming? Of course it’s essential. I can’t figure out how to make Tidal gaplesss so still prefer playing CDs. Streaming is attractive but it’s easy to have your mind blown by the endless complexity and range of options.... 🤯
This is very interesting and something I'd love to try out in my system. Being able to get ROON to work with my Naim SuperUniti, which does not have roon support and sadly never will. I know Bluesound makes a similar product, but I've read mixed reviews regarding sound quality with that. Great video as always Mr Darko. Hope you enjoyed Poland.
The gap is definitly annoying with live recordings when the audience is clapping and cheering between songs. Gapless playback is a godsent for those recordings.
I´d prefer clapless recordings.
John, what a neat little box that does the gapless thing without an eye blink. Good stuff. I have made gapless CDs before and didn’t think about it. Streaming gapless isn’t that easy, lots of handshaking going on. That’s okay as long as it works. Maybe you’ll do a follow up at your place? Okay?
Been using gapless playback since the Winamp days, I didn't even know it was an issue today.
I don't do streaming yet, but very close to jumping in..... and I never even knew this was an issue. I am shocked that it still is! It just shows how little these services really know or care about the listening experience, or they'd have solved it years ago.
Gapless should be a right and not a privilege.
Well, using the np5 with tidal connect is NOT gapless on my device. Am I doing something wrong? I guess its not tidal connect but chromecast protocoll. That sucks, hope native tidal gets implemented for gapless playback via tidal connect!
Such a soothing voice!
Yes, with that beard, glasses, the hand gestures. Im with you
Am I missing something? What playback software are you using that leaves gaps in your play back? But perfect? I’m so confused.
Yeah and apparently you need hardware? I'm confused
He's talking about the 2 second silence between tracks on most commercial CD's and on pretty much all commercial LP's as well, though some LP's they segue between songs by blending in the "gap area, such as Flying and Blue Jay Way on the Magical Mystery Tour LP by the Beatles and I've reconstructed it by simply keeping those two as one track but in the past when I had Nero Burning Rom for burning CD's, I did a child's record, the soundtrack to the 1964 Walt Disney film, a Child's Introduction to Melody (1964) and it was one complete side sans gaps. I simply captured each side as one file, did any processing needed, then went in and split them at natural points in the recording, as tracks so you can still index them, but they were burned without gaps for continuous playback of the ENTIRE record, but on CD and it works that way quite well.
Trick is to be intentional about doing it to make it work, and it does require a bit more work, but well worth it when the situation calls for it.
So as you play track one, it seamlessly moves to track 2 without you ever knowing it, unless you looked at the display to see you are on track 2.
Except here, he's also inferring doing this with different digital formats for a seamless playback, which is different than simply creating a gapless playback on a CD.
Yeah, no idea what to make of this either. I've never had an issue with unwanted gaps in my music.
I’m baffled too. Winamp had a setting for removing the 2 second gap between tracks. I could play music from another pc (network storage) and it would still play gapless. Just tested new tool album on Spotify between invincible and legion inoculant music played seamlessly. If I bought a high end network streamer, Is there a risk that it won’t play back gapless?! Edit: in addition, when I used to burn CDs there was an option to remove the two second gap between tracks, all CD players I put the CD into would play without gaps. So basically it sounds like the issue is with some hardware uPNP streamers.
I can't image listing to a Voices from the Lake Album without gapless playback. I was actually surprised that Spotify is able to play gapless while streaming, but not if you play tracks stored localy on your drive. Does anyone know why that is? So I use Foobar for that now, but wished Spotify could to it too.
Pardon my ignorance but isnt gap less playback the delay between songs? Isnt this a feature within iTunes when it comes to converting/ripping etc
Yes, Anthony, you can rip a CD into one, continuous music file using iTunes..... just as the artists intended it to be heard. It's a bit obscure. You have to a) select all the tracks, b) find the little gear-icon and c) choose "Join CD Tracks", before you rip it. Mr. Darko is correct that with certain albums (Dark Side, and Quicksilver's Happy Trails are two that come to mind), a continuous rip is essential.
Adore Tidal sound quality,buts it’s killing me how it’s not hapless through CCA. Please God is there a way to fix this?
I bought an Arcam streamer which uses Play Fi . Nobody told me it didn't play gapless. My first listen to it was Quadrophinia. The 5 second delay kicked in. I haven't used it since. When you go onto the Play Fi forums everybody is asking the question When will it play gapless? 1 year later it is still not resolved and the Arcam streamer sits dormant on the hi Fi shelf. It does my head in!!
95% of the time I’m listening on my phone through Spotify during work. Gaps used to drive me nuts. Thankfully I do a 2-3 sec overlay. Works nicely.
All I really really want for Christmas is an review of the primare np5 prisma. Make my wish come true.
Thanks for covering this very important issue in detail. I have found that the best test of gapless playback is Evgeny Kissin playing Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor Wo0 80. It is one continuous piece of piano virtuosity and must be played gapless. Many of the 32 tracks are as little as 11 seconds long, not much time for the streaming system to buffer the next track. It is a good test. You can listen to it on Tidal
tidal.com/browse/album/77576289
or on Spotify
open.spotify.com/album/6i5EFh77GP8mbzmAys4DgP
Absolutely gapless playback is important.
Not sure if it's common knowledge or not but it appears AmazonHD music streams gapless. 5 albums today all good. The 1st one being one John mentions in another video; Close Combined by Richie Hawtin. Equinox by JMJ also sounds perfect!
When I research to buy a music playback device and it doesn’t list gapless playback as a feature, I just rule it out! Simple! This rule saved a lot of money for me last 2 decades cos it’s hard to find things to buy!
problem is that 99% of devices or apps that claim to be gapless are not capable of doing that.
John: Now that I read your Darko.Audio article on the NP5, I seem to understand it does not support connecting a DAC over USB. However, the Primare literature seems to indicate this is possible. Which is it? Thx.
Hey Miguel. I can't see where the Primare website says that USB connection to a DAC is supported?
Miguel, if I can step in, thanks for the input as it seems I need to revise the literature for greater clarity. For here new, the NP5 Prisma is a network player only, and does not have a built in DAC (needs to be connected to a digital input). The SC15 Prisma is both network player and DAC (as well as preamp), Terry
@@DarkoAudio In this doc, on the second page, I interpreted a DAC was used in the USB-A connector, but then I see at the end of the doc this is clarified: the rates supported are INPUT rates (ie file rates/formats). Thx. I really wish they could support USB DACs. www.primare.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/NP5-Prisma-Design-Brief.pdf
@@PrimareAB Thank you Terry. I understand the NP5 does not have a DAC in it. What I was not clear about is whether I can connect an external DAC over USB - reading more carefully the literature is clear that the digital outputs are SPDIF over coax or toslink, not USB (which is an input for a hard drive)
@@westernartifact580sorry for the late response, Amazon Music is available with Chromecast, but not HD. We expect that as the service is more fully rolled out (only available now in US, UK, Germany, and Japan) that other features will be added, including HD on Chromecast.
I actually didn't know this was a thing. I'm trying to decide which direction to take in steaming hi-fi (I'm using SoundCloud and Bandcamp for finding new music and only spend money on vinyl or gigs) and if gap-less is still a challenge, I might hold out a bit longer before investing in steaming hardware
I think you'll be hard-pressed to find something that adds gaps.
The Abbey Road album must be the most infuriating experience when listening with gaps...
is there a way to do gapless playback with streaming from google play music or youtube music? i love spotify but i get google music free with youtube red so it’s hard for me to justify a spotify subscription 🤷🏻♂️ obviously i’m no audiophile but damn these youtubers just when i think im out they pull me back in😡🤯
Great chat with Mr Medalen. I’ve been keenly following press on the NP5. For me if there is no gapless playback I simply will not buy the product.
If someone with the power to decide "gapless or not" in products and solutions doesn't get why it actually IS a big deal, they are yet another example of overpaid and underskilled.
Anyone know the watch Terry is wearing. Beautiful!
Looks like an IWC model.
Glad I'm not the only one that is annoyed with not perfect gapless playback with these mp3 stream apps. They need to fix this asap!
Goes to show just how good and ahead of its time the Squeezebox and LMS was/is.
regarding Apple music if crossfade is enabled and set to 1s (via playback preferences) it is almost gapless? tried it on Dark Side of the moon Ok for me but would like other peoples views ?
Why thay not aloud load an album with one long load?
Chromecast Audio Spotify is only 256kbs??
Yup, 320kbps with Premium service using Spotify Connect.
At the moment I'm looking for a suitable streamer that doesn't break the bank and luckily "found" the NP5. I'm excited about a streamer that offers Roon, Airplay, Chromecast and gapless DLNA in one device for a price of under 500€. So far this is to my knowledge the only streamer with such a huge feature set which delivers this at this price point.
In your article you mention that you had requested a review device, I would be very interested to hear what you think about the device. You don't happen to have a review planned in the next days, do you? 🤣
I've been using Google Play Music ever since it came out, so I didn't realize this was still an issue as Google Play Music plays gaplessly to a Chromecast.
Dennis Hahn ;Gets terrible reviews on App Store and it doesn’t have a lossless option.
Came across this issue recently when I thought I’d try out the UA-cam Music app....one of my favourites is Equinox by JMJ and it was horrible listing to the gaps that were added in.....same with Pink Floyd.
After the free trial I won’t be sending any business their way!
I feel that I have to say that the filming on this video is top notch, not that it’s normally poor or anything like it, but to me it comes across very professional, as if a experienced BBC cameraman was behind the lens. Non gapless is very annoying. i.e. PSB, INTROSPECTIVE T1 into T2, love that Thunder then the bass synth line kicks in. Totally kills the moment if there’s a gap.
As someone who's been a fan of electronic ambient music for a while now, I say gapless is absolutely necessary. A lot of ambient music has songs that are meant to flow together to create one big seamless experience. And hearing gaps is very jarring and ruins that experience. Faulty gapless will ruin a DAP for me.
Logitech Media Server and Squeezebox players support a pretty good implementation of gapless. They also support a good cross-fade too. I have mine set up to play albums gaplessly and playlists with cross-fade. Works pretty well.
I believe Roon is able to do gapless over Chromecast, isn't it?
Yes! But Chromecast support was added to Roon by Roon Labs and without any Google assistance.
So it's theoretically possible for Spotify and Tidal to work a little bit harder and make it work?
I've complained lengthy to both of them about gapless playback on Chromecast devices, to no avail :(
Gapless is ULTRAIMPORTANT in square for me.
Gapless playback is definitely important. However, by and large I play local files/Tidal/Qobuz over Roon to a Roon endpoint, so this is not an issue for me or anyone using Roon. However, for me in particular the killer feature is Chromecast Audio gapless playback connected over USB to my DAC.
Waut, wait, wait... CD's play gaplessley? What am i missing? They're digital audio--lossless or not, its a "sample" based technology. Could someone elaborate?
My bad. Gapless is usually used to describe the encoding applied to a digital file. Apparently, they just want to know why there's a second between tracks...
You're looking at it as digital vs analog. You're thinking "gaps" as in digital sampling - or "gaps" as in the spaces between samples. That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about the very audible "gaps" BETWEEN tracks while the software loads the next song to be played.
A multitrack CD doesn't contain separate data files for each track, CDs contain one data stream with an index that describes to the player where in the data each track starts.
I have many CD's that play all the way through without any gaps. Dj mixes such as this is jungle and micky finn at dreamscape. Metal albums such as trivium ascendancy and black Sabbath's first album. I have others that have a couple of second gaps that count down between tracks. Dire straits brothers in arms is a good example of this.
I think it depends on how the album is mixed/mastered. More so in live recordings, but also some studio albums. There isn’t a gap in sound between songs.
All that new technology gives me shivers. Simple things will never be achieved, because nobody knows what is really good.
Hi John Darko,
For me gapless playback is a must have, unfortunately in HEGEL's products at their UPnP platform doesn’t have that feature and it seam in the near future not going to happen…
For now they are all focus in Roon instead gapless playback and that for me is a shame…
I know you like HEGEL (I do also, have an H190 myself) but they are like very old kind of a company, they moving so slow in costumers directions…
Just had this with cd players. I thought it was standard that CDs played back gapless. Not so. Cheaper ( all I'm buying) machines often not standard. Loved the sound of the Tangent CD2 but not only did it insert gaps, ruining Father of the Bride. But also clipped Quarter or half a second from the beginning of tracks on CDs that had gaps! Going back.
Teac cd 650p - plays gapless, digital out to Schitt Modi. But not as crisp as the Tangent... 🙁 But the butchery of classic tunes. It's got to go, more a shame as it also looks great!
Who remembers indexing on CDs? Almost no labels took advantage of it, so many multi-segment ochestral pieces were simply stamped as a single track so that they would be seamless when played through from start to finish. Indexing allowed you to jump directly to individual parts.
So weird! I've never met a CD player that inserted gaps. When CDs were the main music medium the gaps were down to how it was written / burned to the CD.
Chromecast Audio plays gapless with Roon. You know this. You say it in your video on the Chromecast ua-cam.com/video/qX2LbNfMAS4/v-deo.html
blog.roonlabs.com/chromecast-support-in-roon/
With audio-only devices (like Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, and Chromecast Audio) you can now enjoy gapless high-resolution music (up to 96kHz/24-bit) from Roon.
Of course gapless playback is a necessity. I have found hundreds of albums in Deezer that I'm not able to find on Tidal, but I had to leave Deezer because they have no gapless playback in their apps (iOS or macOS). In the other hand, I don't see myself buying an special gadget to get gapless playback. It's something all the streaming services should be offering in their apps.
The diameter of his glasses is almost the same diameter as his logo......hum....and in a weird rearrangement of the ark of the logo, almost resembles the ark between his lenses....hum...gapless?
What in the name of.....is gapless playback? There is allways a gap between tracks ...is it not? I dont understand
A good example of a gapless album is Soulwax's 'Nite Versions'
A lot of CDs are without gap between tracks actually. Gapless playback is really important...
When you have a live recording of a concert or a continuous dj album you don't want there to be gaps in between the tracks.
Not all albums were mastered that way. As they say with something like Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, the tracks roll into each other seamlessly. Some albums were mastered to run as a continuous thing.
There are many albums where songs are meant to flow seamlessly together. Live recordings are a good example. Another good example is a lot of ambient music where there may be individual tracks but are really meant to be listened to together as a whole, sounding more like one big song (Leaving Home by Solar Fields is my favorite album in this genre and serves as a perfect example). CDs never had a problem with this; you can listen to an entire live concert without hearing any gaps, but can still choose songs.
Sounds like Primare is going down the same road as dCS of developing in-house playback software and control point - Mosaic in the case of dCS. I recently moved over from a Chord DSX to a Bartok and found that BubbleuPnP no longer played gapless from Minimserver on my NAS. The reasom given is that the Bartok is not a true uPnP renderer so will only play gaplessly with Mosaic. This is fine but Mosaic does not have (yet) comparable features to Bubble and it also means that you are locked into a single player (JRiver Gizmo is also not gapless). As a point of principle, I struggle with propietry technology that restricts choice in this way but maybe the other benefits (that dCS claim) are worth the trade-off.
There's really no point in listening to From Mars to Sirius album unless there is no gap present between From Mars and To Sirius
Hegel H360 + Bubble UPNP works fine for gapless. Playback from NAS, Qobuz cd quality (cloud),... I would love to see a review from Hegel H390/590 based on playback from bubble upnp only.
No gapless support on the H590.
Ten years younger with these new glasses!!!
me too, anything for attention
Interesting topic
Like seamless branching on DVDs and Blu-rays. Always be [buffering]. 😉
I use TEAC HR Player and have no problem with gapless playback
I’m curious because while gapless is essential I haven’t had an issue since mid 2000s. I mean I’ve got issues with chromecast just stopping partway through an album, but assume that’s mainly crappy Australia-net. Between tracks idk maybe it’s the software I use. Obviously I’ve steered clear of NAS too
Warsaw!
So cool that this grey beard is digging through bandcamp
I think the issue of gapless is because straming bcame very popular. When I started steramin over 10 years ago when it was not so popular and there was only few streamesr on the market, no one imagined that that there might be extra silence between songs. I used Linn and Logitech. Both were gapless by design. I was not aware there is gapless issue for almost 10 years. Now I hear people has the gapless issue. It is because today we have many steramers and most of them are designed in wrong way. somehing we could not imagine 12 years ago. So if there was no gapless issues then, why it is an issue today? WTF.
before Linn and Squezebox I ripped my CDs into one FLAC file and cue file with description, and it was perfect for foobar2000 but then I splitted it to songs because of tagging. keping one file for whole album is also an option for gapless but then software must read the embeded or external cue file
I used to master albums at a studio in Denver, using Wavelab to lay out master discs. Saw pretty early on the 2 second gaptastrophe coming as people ripped and burned with tools that never even asked the question, let alone let you adjust gaps.
Seamless transitions are absolutely critical for many recordings.
Ever tried listening to Sgt Pepper not gapless it was dreadful in the early days of streaming but most of the big players have got it right now
I will just keep buying CDs, no gapless issues. Great back up. I know the whole entire world is done with CDs, I'm not.
I keep on buying them while they are cheap! I bought an ERC3 and have been buying cds buy the boatload ever since
Frankly I’d be embarrassed if I was Primare and they have only just got gapless in their products. My Squeezebox Touch I had 10 years ago did gapless! And I bet the even older Squeezebox’s did it before then too. My Node 2i also does gapless though I don’t recall checking explicitly for that functionality when I bought it - I just assumed it would given we’re in 2019!
It is .I got records
using Bubble upnp with a Melco N100 is a nightmare,huge gaps between tracks.Try Mike Oldfield/Songs of distant earth with gaps-
horrible,absolutely has to be gapless.Same with the Floyd/The Wall.
2 words "Compact Disks"
This is not a new issue. Poor implementations of the UPnP / DLNA protocols are all over the place. OpenHome solved this years ago. Proper UPnP / DLNA implementations is available from products that got the right attention to detail. Many companies just buy a network card with streaming software from a 3rd party with questionable quality. I have no clue why Darko just now remembered to address this. He totally blinked on that when reviewing the H590 from Hegel.
Of course it's not a new issue. I have written about it twice (prior to this) on Darko.Audio but I can't tackle all the issues all of the time.
Neither is this issue isolated to UPnP. Chromecast isn't gapless and many DAPs aren't gapless.
And you are correct: I don't test UPNP when reviewing a high end streamer because there are more important issues to tackle and only 15-20mins to cover them in.
A lot of sub bass in this video chat. My sub picks up the air in the room or something. Lol.
The silence at the end of a piece gives a completeness to it, gapless is not necessary for me.
You don’t understand the problem.
Say whaaaa???
Camera angles all wrong on this. Feels like he is both sides of the conversation
Those are some tiny glasses.
I'm over here with crossfades
All interesting but gapless playback itself is not new. Now, I've never seen it on streaming, but it was a feature on some CD players in the mid to late 80's as my late father's first CD player was a compact sized component single disc CD player from Sony that had a button to play gapless or not but so far I've not seen it on anything else since then.
Mind you, that was for CD only though playback. I have created gapless playback for CD's I was making by not choosing the gap option in Nero burning Rom for a CD project that was digitizing a Disneyland records soundtrack to a Child's Introduction to Melody (Walt Disney Films, 1964) and the record was entirely gapless for each side and I was able to replicate it verbatim to CD by telling Nero no gaps and splitting the large file for each side up at natural points and thus retain indexing as needed, but be able to play the entire CD as if one track so again, it's not a new idea, just now being able to make it work with different streamers, formats, bit/sample rates etc and do it seamlessly.
The CD project was done in the mid Aughts, BTW.
Gapless really only comes into play with live recordings for me personally, otherwise it’s nice to have, but not necessary
I say, just enjoy your music whether gapless or not... seriously who listens to an entire album these days?
I agree....streaming suck!!
Cheap and nasty hack - crossfade. Oops I think I typed that out loud.