Oppo Sonica DAC with flagship ESS ES9038PRO SABRE DAC

I only ask as you said Apple was doing gapless in 2005 so I figured you meant all audio file formats. The only gapless issues I seem to have is when playing DSD files. With Flac files it's not an issue that I've come across.

 

No Bill, it didn't mean all audio formats. No player I know of does all audio formats. It would be the formats that Apple does. Either way, it had it sussed ages ago.

 

Software players are more likely to play all music/audio formats.

 

Probably Kal, with the number of different formats out there, it's very difficult for hardware manufacturers to keep up with the volume that exist. Crazy that the situation is as it is, which in most cases only serves to confuse the consumer or users.

 

I agree that the many different formats is unnecessarily confusing and mitigates against optimizing hardware and software. Software players, as you note, have an advantage and that's why I have never found any hardware player attractive.

 

FWIW, my Denon X7200 receiver does gapless DSD from my NAS (though you can only stream it in stereo). So it seems to be possible in principle.

 

I went with Onkyo's HF Player for out and about on my phone which does DSD and FLAC.

Apple I'll use at home for radio streaming, otherwise my iPod Touch is redundant. That apart my formats are regular CD, SACD, Blu-ray, a few DVD-As and FLAC or WAV. They give me enough to work with!

 

I think with computers and iPhones, etc., that is more a function of software than hardware. So, it would be your playback program that would support gapless. I know that iPhones and iPods don't natively in their hardware support DSD, but programs like Onkyo HF player do.

Man, I should have read the rest of the thread before I posted, as I see what I wrote above has already been discussed by others.

 

I guess if all you listen to is dsotm and sgt peppers, it's important. my taste is not just two dinosaur records tho, and even on stuff where there is a seemless segue between tracks I don't get all bothered about it if it doesn't happen. Also, with music playback from files, I do more listening in "shuffle" type modes, and i suspect most normal people do as well. it is one of the good things about digital file based playback.

 

Gee, DSOTM and Peppers usually get mentioned in discussions about gapless, because they are good examples and pretty much everyone knows them. Doesn't mean that he doesn't listen to anything else. I have hundreds of albums in my collection with tracks that segue into each other.

In my case all playback is digital file based. That's why I ripped all my music to a hard drive. But if you rarely listen to albums I can see why gapless is no issue for you. Not sure what you consider normal, but I suppose that there are still many people who listen to whole albums occasionally, not only playlists in shuffle mode.

 

That is right. For me listening to an album start to finish is more rule than exception. And why not, a lot of albums have a nice flow where the sum is greater than the parts.

To each their own I guess.

 

I feed my 105D from my Squeezebox and I get gapless with both stereo hi-Rez PCM (flac) and DSD (DoP). I'm not sure if my HA-2 will do gapless hi-Rez PCM and/or DSD from iPhone. I don't think I have any hi-Rez stuff on the iPhone right now that really needs gapless. I need to check.

However, I'm unable to stream 5.1 to the 105D and get gapless. Drives me nuts.

If the new Sonica does Mch and gapless, I'm in. Otherwise...pass.

 

If by "normal people", you mean people who just listen to music casually and for whom music is just a good beat and it's easy to dance to, then yes, I agree.

 

Over approximately 15 years of being computer as source I have never actually ever used shuffle play on any of my computer players or portable players. I may have tried shuffle play briefly to see how it works, but that has been the extent of any shuffle style playing. Everything I do is album based. All playlists I make for myself are album based.

One of the best things about digital file based playback is the ability to search my library for a musician, composer, or band and have every album I own that has that musician, composer, or band as a performer show up in the search. As an example, I can type in "Tony Levin" and have all of the albums or songs I own that have Tony Levin playing (either as solo albums or as part of a band) show up. I have my albums tagged so that I can do that. That's the biggest advantage I like with computer based playback.

I also listen to classical music where the transition from one track to the next is supposed to be gapless. An artificial gap or glitch between tracks will take you out of the moment when the change between movements is intended to be seamless. Similar with live performances like the Grateful Dead where the jamming and seamless playing between songs is as important to the flow of the music as the actual songs.

Gapless playback is an absolute necessity for me. And all of my computer and portable based playback choices have been driving by whether they can do gapless playback or not. No gapless playback then I'm not going to buy or use the software or player.

 

Checked last night. The HA-2 does gapless hi-rez PCM as well.

 

I spoke with Oppo Digital USA, they hope to have more details to release "by the end of next week". It is "believed" to be able to play DSD gaplessly from a network, unsure whether it will do gapless from a connected hard drive. No additional info/pictures available.

 

80% of my listening on the main stereo is live concert recordings. Gapless is a must. Non-negotiable

I do shuffle on the Sonos system but that's background listening. Are you really sitting down at your hifi in the evening with a glass of your preferred adult beverage and just shuffling? I'd imagine that puts you in a small minority of the hifi community

 

I wouldn't be fixated on whether or not this particular unit supports gapless. It hasn't been released yet, or even officially announced. It has only been given a "sneak peek" in TAS.

 

yep, i love to mix things up. I have a ton of music. I listen to albums too, but that is mostly on vinyl. Listening on the living room "hifi" (aka not my main system) to squeezebox based digital, mostly on the fly mixes. But, not what I would call background listening.

Maybe in the "hifi" community a minority? but probably the vast majority of today's music listeners/consumers, so that's why the gapless playback is not a huge deal to most people. And even with gapless recordings, it seems a bit ocd to get all bothererd by track gaps. but that's just me.

 

I don't think having a desire to gapless is OCD at all. If you don't mind an album that you are listening to having breaks where there shouldn't be that's cool. But I prefer to listen to albums that don't have any breaks just like the album was recorded .

 

it does not make sense at all to not provide gapless playback. Come on, a lot of albums are mixed on purpose to let the songs seque into each other. Of course one can listen to these albums with gaps, but it takes away part of the atmosphere of such albums.

Can you imagine listening to The Wall with gaps, or Routine/Home Invasion/Regret#9 from Hand.Cannot.Erase. with gaps? It does not sounds as good as it does without gaps.

 

I agree 100% .

 

Gapless? Important? Course it is!

Maybe not the kind of importance in relation to some of the world events out there just now, but in and of itself, when you grew up with records and radio then find your gear that's cost a fortune can't do Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, or ELO's Concerto for a Rainy Day without sticking in a bloody gap, then yeah, it's a pisser!

So my Apple iPod Touch can do it, but my main gear can't? Get it sorted FFS!!

 

Where was it insinuated that an upcoming OPPO standalone DAC would not support gapless?

 

I don't believe anyone has. Just discussing whether gapless is important or not .