Well, I feel like a total blockhead for not thinking of this sooner. In the wake of the elyric debacle with iOS 7 upgrade, I was no longer able to play gapless and it was beginning to get on my nerves a bit. Previously, I was running a dedicated music server in the basement (my old PC fitted with a nice RAID setup) and I run both JRiver, elyric, and logitech media server on it ( for my transporter in my bedroom). I would use jRiver/JRemote primarily, except for gapless albums, which I would use elyric server/remote. I was quite happy with this setup really until elyric stopped working.
So, today, I had the brilliant idea to go through my library and convert my gapless albums to a single flac file using foobar2000, and also keep the original individual tracks. I then went into mp3tag and edited the album title to include (gapless) after the title. Now, in JRemote, it shows up twice, once as the individual tracks and once as the entire gapless album. Now I can choose whether I want to listen to the whole album or just a few tracks. All it costs is some HDD space which I have plenty of (8x2TB in raid6). I am now listening to The Wall in perfect gapless fashion via JRiver. This actually works better than iPeng and the Transporter (which was plan B to hook up to the PWD2).
Time to go uninstall both of the Elyrics for good!
I strongly urge anyone who is running off a NAS to suck it up and set up a dedicated server with an old PC, as the functionality like this is really perfect. I finally feel like the PWD is living up to its potential as a high end network renderer without limitations.
And thanks Paul for the firmware update. The album art works with JRiver now and the sound quality is the best I have heard on my system.
@clint
Indeed.
This work around has been discussed since the beginning of the gapless comments.
It does work well.
I am surprised more people have not done this.
Thanks for the update!
@Gordon:
Yes, I remember reading about it long ago but was pretty happy using elyric for gapless and JRiver for Non-Gapless, so I had kind of forgotten about it. My initial reason for not changing is that I don’t ALWAYS want to listen to the whole album and it never occurred to me to keep 2 copies of the gapless albumswith one split into tracks as well as a single gapless file.
Thinking about it more, I am sure this strategy would work for those that don’t want a music server and only want to use a NAS as well. Converting the files into gapless with Foobar2000 is really easy and only takes about 30 seconds for each disc. I had initially thought I would have to re-rip all of my CDs.
I googled for a way to convert individual files into a single gapless album, and, ironically, was directed to a post by Elk on this forum, so I know it has been discussed.
It just makes me a bit sad when I come here and see all of the unhappy comments about the bridge and elyric and gapless, when I have been pretty darn happy with it from the beginning. Hopefully someone that hasn’t read all of the old posts will get some benefit from this, as it really does work perfectly IMHO.
Maybe we should make a all inclusive instruction document on how to get the bridge working with Gapless using a NAS, a music server, wired, or wireless connections and make it into a big PDF that can be downloaded. I think part of the problem is that people tend to not go back and read all of the older stuff that has already been figured out. It takes a while to go through some of the long threads and there is a lot of “filler” between the useful information.
Regards,
Clint
Yes, it would be great to have the instructions all in one permanent place for reference.
PAUL, we could ask for volunteers again on this but the best person would be the PSA customer support “team” since they are fielding the calls and have the most info at hand. This would, I am sure, free them up to shovel more snow and sweep the warehouse, so PSA would be better off too.
The REAL winners would be PSA customers who would feel the LOVE and be less frustrated. It would also be where the forum bros could direct people.
If your CS could write up the instructions by PRODUCT/FUNCTION and post them in the forum then we could proof read them for any boo boos or omissions.
HOW ABOUT IT?
I understand the DSOTM cult might like to play individual tracks occasionally but for those who cry incessantly for gapless then all they need is one l album track anyway, or both if they like.
Highlight the tracks and check convert to one file. DbPA or XLD
Pretty challenging, EH?
Clint, since you already have foobar2000, you might want to give the foo.out.upnp component a try. It will stream gapless to the PWD just like WaveStream is intended to do. I use the MonkeyMote iApp, which costs a couple bucks. Everything else is free. Just install the component, go to preferences, pick your library and choose the PWD as output (and 24 bits). MonkeyMote requires Apple Bonjour to be installed but they provide a link (and it’s free too). I’m using it with Bridge firmware 2.4.3. On my faster PC (3rd gen Core i7 desktop) it plays 192/24 gapless with few skips or other glitches (I get skips with my older, slower PC above 96/24 but that’s been true of pretty much everything I’ve tried).
clint said: I googled for a way to convert individual files into a single gapless album, and, ironically, was directed to a post by Elk on this forum, so I know it has been discussed.
I am delighted to learn both that it worked for you and that you find it useful. :)
An excellent idea. I had considered converting some of my live albums to single-file gapless but held off b/c the wife likes to play single tracks sometimes. Didn’t think of this, but all it costs is a bit of disk space.
Clint, since you already have foobar2000, you might want to give the foo.out.upnp component a try. It will stream gapless to the PWD just like WaveStream is intended to do. I use the MonkeyMote iApp, which costs a couple bucks. Everything else is free. Just install the component, go to preferences, pick your library and choose the PWD as output (and 24 bits). MonkeyMote requires Apple Bonjour to be installed but they provide a link (and it's free too). I'm using it with Bridge firmware 2.4.3. On my faster PC (3rd gen Core i7 desktop) it plays 192/24 gapless with few skips or other glitches (I get skips with my older, slower PC above 96/24 but that's been true of pretty much everything I've tried).
@stevem2,
I am going to give this a shot the next time I have some time to sit down and tinker with the system. If it works as you say, it may make the wavestream development unnecessary. I don't have my library set up in foobar and only downloaded it to do the gapless conversion. I initially tried it and thought it was OK, but preferred JRiver enough to buy it.
In other ways I prefer JRMC with JRemote (interface, etc.) but foobar and MonkeyMote work well enough for now. I’ll probably switch back once WaveStream is finished.
I strongly urge anyone who is running off a NAS to suck it up and set up a dedicated server with an old PC, as the functionality like this is really perfect. I finally feel like the PWD is living up to its potential as a high end network renderer without limitations.
What is wrong with a NAS? I can do all of this with my NAS and consume less energy than an old PC.
What is wrong with a NAS is you can’t run JRiver from it. I have tried lots of different methods and (for me) JRiver/JRemote is superb compared with the other DLNA/UPNP options. When I wrote that, though, it hadn’t crossed my mind that the same gapless trick could be done on a NAS, but if you look at my second post above, I conceded the point that it will work on a NAS also. If you have your NAS working properly to your satisfaction, that is awesome. There are a lot of guys in the “Elyric Is broken/sucks” thread who haven’t figured out how to get their NAS to work right now that Elyric no longer works and that was a suggestion for those guys. No Offense was intended.
A NAS, used solely as a network share feeding a program like J River is fine. A NAS, being used without a computer and relying on the built in computer in the NAS, is completely dependent on the quality of the software running on the NAS computer. That can be good or bad, but mostly it isn’t good if gapless is on your list. 
Hello, here are my comments/experience concerning gapless.
I have 3 network players (PS Audio Bridge, Ayon NW-T and Lumin). I use most of the time Lumin application for the Lumin and eLyrics for the Ayon and the Bridge.
I started few weeks ago to use Jriver/Jremote. Jriver is using minimserver (0.8.1) on my Synology NAS. With the Ayon and the Lumin, I can play gapless without any problem with Minimserver/JRiver. It does not work with Synology server and Jriver.
But the issue is that the same association Minimserver/JRiver with the Bridge does not play gapless at all…
Hello, here are my comments/experience concerning gapless.
I have 3 network players (PS Audio Bridge, Ayon NW-T and Lumin). I use most of the time Lumin application for the Lumin and eLyrics for the Ayon and the Bridge.
I started few weeks ago to use Jriver/Jremote. Jriver is using minimserver (0.8.1) on my Synology NAS. With the Ayon and the Lumin, I can play gapless without any problem with Minimserver/JRiver. It does not work with Synology server and Jriver.
But the issue is that the same association Minimserver/JRiver with the Bridge does not play gapless at all....
I think this is because the Bridge is not using Linn Extensions.
I know our Lumin do, but how about the Ayon?
How do you rate the Ayon vs. the Lumin vs. the PWD Bridge on SQ?
I have the Synology 713+ w/SSD - which NAS do you have?
Paul McGowan said: A NAS, being used without a computer and relying on the built in computer in the NAS, is completely dependent on the quality of the software running on the NAS computer. That can be good or bad, but mostly it isn't good if gapless is on your list.
I hate to disagree with Paul on a technical matter, but I don't think that's quite right. A NAS (with no computer) such as I run will typically have server software (e.g., MinimServer) installed on the NAS. Whether or not gapless works depends on a) having a renderer that supports gapless and b) having proper communication between the control point and the renderer. The server is not the issue.
Clearly, with all the tests I made I clearly see that the server is not the only issue (with Minimserver both Lumin and Ayon operate perfectly).
@ Frode
I don’t know what are Linn extensions but I 99% sure that the Ayon NW-T (based on Stream Unlimited 700 hardware, like the latest Chord) don’t use that.
What do you mean by SQ ?
Concerning the NAS I use a Synology 1512+ with standard HD (no SSD).
Concerning the differences, I’ll come back on taht later or by PM.
Best regards
Clearly, with all the tests I made I clearly see that the server is not the only issue (with Minimserver both Lumin and Ayon operate perfectly).
@ Frode
I don't know what are Linn extensions but I 99% sure that the Ayon NW-T (based on Stream Unlimited 700 hardware, like the latest Chord) don't use that.
What do you mean by SQ ?
Concerning the NAS I use a Synology 1512+ with standard HD (no SSD).
Concerning the differences, I'll come back on taht later or by PM.
Best regards
By SQ I mean Sound Quality.
If you do some searching in this forum you will find quite a few threads discussing the Lumin and also some referring to the Linn Extensions related to gapless pb.
Ok thanks I’m going to have a look