Sector Boundary Errors and Redbook

This is something that I haven't learned much about since I started needledropping but it's something I'd like to wrap my head around. I understand that SBE's only occur in 16-bit audio? And there is a way (once resampled/dithered in Izotope) to take choose "snap to frames" and avoid SBE's when splitting tracks in Audition. I have not tested this method yet. However, I have used a program to split called CD Wave which automatically aligns the tracks on sectors. My next question is Trader's Little Helper has an option for fixing SBE's for single tracks and for an entire album but it also has an SBE option when encoding to FLAC. Is this option necessary even though I know my wav file (split by CD Wave) has no SBE's?

 

Is this the same thing as the waveform crossing the boundry line? I just fix this by hand using a WAV editing program. If you don't do this, you can get a click at the edit (or the next track).

As far as I know, this happens with all forms of digital audio.

 

No, nor it is a 16-bit problem. It is a CD problem.

Redbook stores audio in sectors - 1/75 of a second, or 588 samples. To ensure you don't have glitches between songs, you either need to use CD burning software that automatically shifts things for you, or your files have to be multiples of 588 long.

For example, if track 1 is 589 samples long (hey, the math works), there will be a gap of 587 samples between tracks 1 and 2 unless you a) move 1 sample from the end of track 1 to the beginning of track 2, b) move 587 samples from the beginning of track 2 to the end of track 1 or c) let smart CD burning software do one of the two for you.

As for the OP, the only point I can respond to is that enabling the SB fix when encoding to FLAC won't do anything one way or another if your files are already aligned. I.e., it won't hurt.

 

Aligning to sector boundaries is only necessary when you are creating a physical CD. If the music stays entirely in the digital domain (FLAC, etc.) then you don't have to worry about sector boundaries because there are no sectors.