As your example shows, only the Xing tag for VBR causes the problem, not VBR itself. I also didn't want to accept the screwy track times. But I definitely wanted --nogap. So I'm sticking with CBR. To date, out of 54 CDs ripped & encoded, there is only one transition that is not smooth (TOOL's Parabol to Parabola) on the player. I have been thinking about merging those two into one file since I never want to listen to one without the other.