Gapless issues on 3.21 thread vanished?

A dumb question, but what is gapless playback? When would I want it? Maybe I have it and don't realise......

Yes strange I was following this too.

just wanted to report no issue here with gapless playback on NDS. I've tried a couple of things this morning after reading your initial post late last night.

Nigel, gapless playback is just being able to play the tracks as it was originally intented on the CD, specifically not adding a gap between tracks when there was none (and, conversely, keeping it when there was one). Not being able to play gapless was initially a problem with lossy files, and Wiki has a more technical explanation on this, should you like to dig the subject. There should be no problem with lossless files like FLAC (provided the ripping software works correctly).

In your case, with the UnitiServe and the SuperUniti, you should have proper gapless playback from the start. Unless the problem Simon discovered with Asset affects playing files served by Naim servers as well, that is.

Maybe this little digest (forget the XLD part) is of interest:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...91#29443242072673391

HTH

Maurice

Very strange indeed!  I trust Richard will comment on your thread going missing.

@S-i-S - thanks very much for discovering this.  Had just gotten over my initial hesitation, and had planned to upgrade this morning, but now I am definitely going to wait this one out.  Proper gapless support is much more important to me than seek2time, so I'll wait until Naim support fixes this bug. 

Would have expected Asset to be one of Naim's main test servers.  Seems like something this obvious should have been caught during Q/A? Disappointing! 

Hook

Apologies Simon - user error on my part.  That'll teach me for starting too early on a Saturday morning!  I mean't to send a shortcut of the thread to Naim Tech Support.  Unfortunately I managed to send the whole thread itself. The two options are right next to each other on a drop down box and it's sometimes easy with a slip of the finger on the touchpad to click the wrong one.  Anyway, it's back...

Richard, no worries... that explains that, but what is mysterious is my gapless playback is today working fine... I will be watching this... But right now no issues... either with direct WAV or transcoded FLAC. Hook please don't hold back on account of me

I have found one anomilie, but it is hardly proper usage. When FLAC transcoding and you fast forward to a couple of seconds of the end of the track, the playback stops with a crackle at the end of the track and the playlist stops. But I AM NOT complaining, as this isn't normal user behaviour and could as easily be to do with Asset as with Naim.

Simon

 Edit - I spoke too soon, it just happened again.. It seems intermittent. But I noticed the buffer seems to empty far more just prior to the end of the track before filling up again than i seem to remember. This is for standard 1.4Mbps CD rips.

Many thanks, that's a great explanation. Everything sounds as it should, so I am clearly gapless.

Just to be certain, double check tonight after this nice bottle of red.

I'm definitely clueless!

Just got 3.21 installed using the new Mac Updater, and it went very smoothly.  The only odd thing was that I could not find the USB Serial Converter in the Mac's System Report (as described in the firmware update notes).  No worries though -- the updater did find the com port, and the process completed in about 25 minutes.

The new version of nStream seems to function well.  Seek2time appears to be working as advertised, and so far, so good for gapless support.  Tried half a dozen songs on three live concert albums, and each transition was...er, gapless. 

Not sure why I was so hesitant this time around.  Maybe it was because this was my first update to the NDS?  Or maybe because it was my first update using a Mac?  Or, more likely, it was simply because my setup had hit a nice groove, with everything sounding really good...and I just didn't want to screw it up!

Well done Naim!  Still don't think I'll make much use of seek2time, but nice to know it's there.  Even nicer to know that the Mac updater has finally arrived and works well.  Too bad it arrived just a little too late for the dear, departed Guido Fawkes...

ATB.

Hook

PS - If any of you know Guy in real life, please pass along my regards, and encourage him to come back to the forum. Thanks very much!

Yup,happening to me. No gapless playback. It seems to coincide with buffer levels dropping right down.

Any thoughts?

Yup, there's a glitch with gapless playback... Buffer levels run down in the final few seconds of the track, then an audible glitch befohre playback resumes. A fraction of a second at most, but once you start to notice it, it becomes rather irritating.

Asset, tracnscoding FLAC to WAV.

Poop...

Yep, using Asset here as well, but the behaviour is intermittently consistent with direct WAV and FLAC to WAV playback, and those buffers run right down.

Rather interrupted my listening of the Wall this afternoon whilst auditiong a 250.

Simon

Must have spoke too soon then....bummer!

Will test more thoroughly this evening, and report back.

Hook

Have listened to quite a few live concerts since my last post.  Using Asset, and transcoding FLAC to WAV on-the-fly, I do now see the buffer dropping to 0% at the end of each song. But if I  switch over to the Twonky server running on my QNAP, and stream FLAC, I see the exact same behavior (buffer hitting 0%).

So while that behavior seems consistent, I am not sure if I am hearing any consistency when it comes to these gap glitches.  On some albums, the playback sounds perfectly gapless. For example, during Art Pepper's "Blues for the Fisherman (Live at Ronnie Scott's)", it is either the crowd clapping, or sometimes Art is chatting with the audience, as the track changes. I listened carefully for any glitches, but could not hear any.

Eventually, since Simon mentioned it, I switched over to last year's "The Wall (Experience Edition)". Have spent the last half hour or so driving myself nuts -- am I hearing it?  Am I not?  In most cases, I honestly can't tell.  Many transitions between songs are definitely not what I would call perfectly "seamless", but then, I can not remember how smooth and perfect they were before the upgrade.

For example, there's a continuous guitar strumming as track 7, "Goodbye Blue Sky", switches to track 8, "Empty Spaces".  Using Asset, if I listen very closely, I can hear a very subtle, almost microscopic glitch.  It lasts for only the tiniest fraction of a second, and TBH, if I wasn't carefully listening for it, I probably would not have heard it.  If I switch over to Twonky, the FLAC stream sounds seamless -- I hear no glitch at all.

So maybe all WAV gaps have glitches, but since they are so small, perhaps my ability to hear them depends on what kind of music or clapping or other sounds are occurring?  Might explain some of these inconsistencies...

Thanks to Richard for forwarding Simon's original post to support. I hope they will take a listen and comment soon.  Fingers crossed that this is an easy fix, and we will see an update soon.

ATB.

Hook

Just like to add my sentiments to your thoughts Hook.

Guy was always willing to help where he could which seemed to be in a great many cases, he was one of two forum members that certainly helped me a great deal – I am grateful for that.

He also reminded me or introduced me to several artists I had really forgotten about – I miss that as well.

His return should he ever be inclined would be welcomed by many I am sure.

Peter

Apologies to Simon for off topic post.

Peter, you are welcome, I miss Guy on here as well...

Simon

Yup, this gapless playback is definitely a serious issue. Just listened to Floyd's DSOTM and there were audible glitches at the beginning of both "Time" and "Brain Damage". As previously observed the buffer level runs down to zero and in the case of the "Brain Damage" track I noticed that the buffer had only reached 90% when the track started which must be why I heard a glitch then whereas on other tracks the buffer level recovered to 100% when the track started.

Great album,full of atmosphere!

Richard

I've also noted that using seek to time drains the buffer down as well causing an audible glitch when play restarts. Am using JRiver transcoding from flac to wav to my ND5XS. No problem before updating firmware to 3.21.

Still no news about timeline for a fix? 

Bump.