Mp3 playback not gapless

[TRAVIS_NORDGREN]

Roon Core Machine

Nucleus+

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Nest Wifi, Nucleus+ is Ethernet connected

Connected Audio Devices

Nucleus+ (8TB Internal SSD) > Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus via USB > Rega Brio 2018

Number of Tracks in Library

47,328 tracks

Description of Issue

Just noticed today while listening to some live recordings in mp3 format there were tiny gaps/skips in playback between tracks. I’ve played these same files on iTunes for years prior with seamless gapless playback. I have ALAC versions of some of the recordings and when testing those in Roon, all played gapless. I tried using a few different Roon remotes and outputs and had the same results. Any ideas why these mp3 files would not be gapless in Roon?

Thanks

[wklie (Peter Lie)]

Gapless mp3 support [Answered]

This link is spot-on, particularly this part: This issue is technical but also standards-related. The popular MP3 standard, for example, defines no way to record the amount of delay or padding for later removal. Encoder delay may vary from encoder to encoder, making automatic removal difficult. Some encoders use a nonstandard header to store actual encoder delay & padding values, but not all players/decoders support it. More recent (newer than MP3) compressed audio formats have been designed …

[TRAVIS_NORDGREN]

Thanks Peter. I read this previously but didn’t fully comprehend. Is this interpretation correct, because of variances in encoders, Roon isn’t equipped to automatically remove padding in mp3 playback? Instead depending on the operating system the Roon core is on to handle this, in my case the operating system in my Nucleus+?

Brian’s reply was back in Sept '17, safe to assume Roon has not moved “to a single MP3 codec shipped as part of Roon instead of having multiple operating system specific implementations with slightly different behavior”?

Any layman’s terms explanation would be much appreciated.

Thanks!