Well if the CD player is not gapless that suggests it’s not Red book and more a CD ROM device. Remember actual CD audio has no gaps in in at all, and the tracks are identified by truncating the continuous file of audio sectors into time frames using the table of content file.
In other words gaps in playback is a fault in playback, as these gaps dont exist in the encoding unless part of the content itself. If a player is inserting breaks into the audio file, it is faulty if labelled a CD DA Redbook player.
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Yes, and that’s exactly my point: I agree that if it can’t play gapless, it’s not red-book compliant and it’s a CD-ROM drive. Trouble is, some of these CD-ROM drives are being sold as CD players.
I would stick as always to reputable manufacturers and check the stated compliances. If it’s Redbook CDDA player then no gaps actually exist in the continuous audio ‘file’. If gaps exist they have been artificially added as a possible consequence of using a CDROM player and sub system that has not been correctly adjusted for CDDA, and if stated Redbook CDDA compliant return it, as it is clearly faulty or broken design.
I must admit I have never come across this before from a CD audio player…but has been an issue in the past with ripped files and playback.
I agree with your comments about Sony being able to do a good job when they wsnt to, but!, we bought an A95J tv four years ago, it was an absolutely horrific tv, picture and sound aside it just wouldn’t do anything as it should, Sony changed the mother board and it was no different, Sony then even changed the tv! The new tv was just as bad, they even admitted in an email that “we don’t know what’s causing the problems, and don’t know how to fix it”, shocking!! Eventually, after about two years Sony actually gave us our money back! (2.5k), we went back to our trusted brand of Panasonic, their equivalent tv in cost at least has an equal picture and an even better ‘Technics’ built in sound system, and everything else that should work does work, shouldn’t have strayed in the first place!! And don’t even get me started on their H9 AT surround sound system, just as bad!.
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Such as Arcam and Cambridge Audio? Both of which had produced machines sold as CD players that did not support gapless playback. I believe Arcam resolved the issue for its CD player with a firmware update.
I find it a little disconcerting that even such reputable manufacturers did not discover during testing before release that these products weren’t actually compliant with the spec that they were notionally implementing.
Exactly, hence why I suggested stick with reputable manufacturers, if there is a fault you are more likely to get it repaired.
As far as testing, yes it is surprising.
Yes and yes. It’s almost as if it’s such a basic requirement that it didn’t occur to them to test for it.
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Arcam players didn’t support gapless playback? Really? I’ve had no less than 3 Arcam players (Alpha One, Alpha 5+ and Alpha 6+) and none had a gapless issue at all.
Or do you mean the later players that were actually CD-ROM drives (not the Philips CDM-9 mechs of yesteryear) that fed a buffer cache?
I mean the Arcam CD5. The model name suggests that it’s being sold as a CD player, despite it behaving (without the firmware update) like, as you say, a CD-ROM drive feeding a buffer cache.