I believe the problem is actually *in* the mp3 files, as opposed to in the empeg: a mp3 file has to be a whole number of frames. You can't have half a frame. If the wav input ends half way through a frame, you get half a frame of blankness, which the empeg will faithfully reproduce.

You're right about the fact that most MP3 files contain partial blank space at the end (and, believe it or not, also on the beginning) frames. But my files do not because I have painstakingly edited them to remove these gaps. I do this by trimming whole frames then previewing the gap. I have to do this trial-and-error process repeatedly for each gap until the sound appears seamless. This usually involves trimming more than just the silent frames, so that you can get rid of the pop caused by the waveform jumping at the edit point. It's not 100 percent faithful to the original music, but if done carefully, it can be nearly indistinguishable from the original music. See my other posts in this thread for more on the subject.

This is my whole point... I went to a lot of trouble to de-gap many of my MP3s so that I could listen to the albums without dropouts. But the Empeg isn't playing them back gapless.

I'm guessing, but I suppose the gapless playback tools on the PC do this: on the last frame of a file, they'll cut-short the decoding if the output goes to zero (or very near zero - not sure how quickly it can drop off to zero when encoded).

No, the gapless tools on the PC faithfully reproduce the entire frame- including silence if any is encoded into the frame. Until I de-gapped my MP3 files, WinAmp's gapless output plug-in would play the silence in the beginning and end frames. In order to do gapless playback, you need two elements: MP3's without partial silent frames, and a player that handles such files properly.

I'm reasonably sure that the Empeg is currently putting small dropouts between songs, even with properly gapped files. As you say, it's only 1/38th of a second or so. But for a Pink Floyd album, that's 1/38th of a second too long.

I can supply precise example files to demonstrate this if necessary. What do you say, Hugo?



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.