I am unable to get gapless playback to work with MP3 files. I am using Roon Server on Windows 10 playing back via Roon Remote on my Macbook Pro, Roon ARC and an Eversolo DMP-A6. All have the same symptom: there is a dropout at the beginning of every track in gapless albums (such as DJ mixes). FLAC files do not have this issue and streaming with Qobuz does not have this issue.
The files live on a Synology NAS which has a wired network connection, as does the Roon Server.
I have also tried re-installing the Roon Server on ROCK as well as Ubuntu Server running Roon For Linux, the symptom is the same.
I have verified that these files do play gapless in foobar2000, iTunes etc and have also spun up a Plex server and Plexamp plays them gaplessly with no issue.
I would really prefer not to switch to Plex, but this is a major issue for me as most of my library (~84,000 files) are MP3, mostly in 320 kb/s or VBR V0 and I greatly enjoy DJ mixes.
Please let me know if there is anything I can check for or that can be done.
Describe your network setup
Main router is an Asus RT-AX55, the Roon Server has a wired cat6 connection to the router. My laptop is on 5Ghz wifi, but no improvement on wired connection. Eversolo device is on 5Ghz wifi. Roon ARC same issue on 5G data or wifi.
Forgot to mention, the Windows-based Roon Server setup is a Dell Optiplex w/ Intel i5 6500 3.20 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 250 GB spinning disk drive. The ROCK and Ubuntu installs were on an ASUS NUC Pro 13, i7-1360P, 8GB RAM, 1 TB M.2 SSD.
Just uploaded one of the albums I have been using in my tests. It’s a rip of my own and I can confirm that despite MP3’s inherent weakness with gapless, it does play seamlessly in other players such as locally with Foobar2000 or remotely with Plexamp.
Also to Geoff’s point, I fully intend to retire the Win10 machine with the non-SSD drive, that was more of a test setup for seeing if Roon would work for me which turned into my production setup when I discovered Roon was what I wanted and needed. But as mentioned, the gapless issue persists even on a new machine with a brand new SSD.
I have tested the same on my end, and I do not hear any gaps in the playback. Either listening to it directly from the ROCK SSD drive or HDD drive via the SMB connection to the Windows PC. So we can conclude that the files itself is fine.
I think the next step here is to enable some diagnostics on your account so our technical staff can get some more insight into what’s going on here.
However, before I enable this feature, I’d like to ask for your help ensuring we gather the right information.
First, can you please reproduce the issue once more and note the time and track name at which the error occurs. Then respond here with that time, and I’ll make sure we review the diagnostics related to that timestamp.
Willing to get any diag data you need. The issue occurs in the transition between tracks, to focus on one in particular: track 1 at 6:31 into track 2 at track 2 at 0:00. There is a very small but audible dropout as the player changes tracks.
What the waveform looks like if recorded as a loopback audio capture:
Please confirm if the same thing happens when you skip a track manually by pressing “Next” and if you add a 2-second crossfade between tracks in your device settings.
Its a bit hard to tell when manually switching tracks, but it does seem like theres a bit of a delay in the track starting up.
When adding the 2 second crossfade I notice that the dropout does not seem to occur. Obviously not how the recording is “supposed” to sound but there is no audible or visible gap between the tracks
After deeper analysis, I was able to isolate the issue to the playback engine. Eventually, Roon incorrectly recognized the track length. Actual track length is 6:31:813, but in Roo,n we have 6:34, that’s why during the transitions, we hear the gap.
I’ve opened up a bug report with our developers.
While I can’t say for certain when this bug will be fixed, getting things reproduced in-house is a critical first step, and I will keep this thread up to date as the team passes along feedback and work begins to get this resolved.
As the workaround I can offer the crossfade. You can set it to 1-2 seconds and it will cover the gap.
