Hey guys,
My issue is, I was listening to an album on Plexamp on my desktop and between track 7 and 8 there was a loud click sound, kinda like something was clipping. It doesn’t happen on the web browser version of Plex or on Plexamp on my phone, but it happens on the desktop version.
I’ve checked the end of track 7 and start of track 8 in Adobe Audition, nothing appeared to be wrong with no additional sounds other than the silence that’s meant to be there.
This is something I’ve dealt with previously and thought maybe it was just down to the rip of the CD. But as it’s happened again with a different album, that was from a different source. I’m thinking it could be a bug as why would would this happen on 2 different albums from different sources?
I’m happy to share the 2 tracks if needed. Any help on this would be great. Otherwise I’m going to have to buy the album again and try and rip it differently to avoid this issue.
Different apps can use different codecs which can respond differently to corrupt data streams. The desktop version tends to use OS codecs, which would likely be different than the mobile versions.
I’ve not heard of a general issue with clicking between tracks, so it’s almost certainly related to the specific media (as processed by the specific codecs).
Hey @elan
I think you said about the codec before when I had this issue a while back.
I guess I’ll just have to rip the album again in a different way to avoid this issue. I just hope it doesn’t happen on more stuff as it’s a pain to buy CDs again and re rip stuff.
If it’s okay to ask, some of us could have a look at the two tracks. From my experience, tracks ripped from CD are wave files, pcm_s16le encodes, the most common audio file. One would expect those waves to play without pops or clicks, especially if seven ends in silence, which is why this is a fun mystery to me.
When Elan helps us understand that it’s media related, I recall that I’ve seen sector boundary errors causes pops between tracks when playing wave files, but don’t expect modern ripping software to add them.
You could use xACT on a Mac to check for SBEs, or you could use Audition set to CD Frame timestamps which is a lot harder, or upload if you like.
As I suspected, Track 7 is not cut on a sector boundary according to shntool:
length expanded size cdr WAVE problems fmt ratio filename
2:57.44 31933234 B -b- he ----- wav 1.0000 07 You're The One For Me, Fatty.wav
5:07.15 54797104 B --- he ----- wav 1.0000 08 Seasick, Yet Still Docked.wav
8:04.59 86730338 B 1.0000 (2 files)
When you see a b in the CDR column, it found a sector boundary error on that track.
Although the tracks were m4a containers and ALAC streams, I converted them to wave files (a lossless conversion) so that I can analyze them with shntool, a wave processing and reporting tool. Shntool is one of the main utilities behind the graphical interface of xACT, and shntool is a command line utility that you can install on a Mac using Homebrew.
If an audio track is intended to be burned onto a CD, it’s a mistake for the engineer cutting the track to choose the wrong length. It won’t be easy to predict when that mistake will be made.
Often it’s easiest to ignore SBEs when ripping and check for them afterwards with xACT, which can also fix them by padding a track with silence. I’d look for ripping software that might take care of this automatically.
Wow! @nibbles
Thanks for looking into this. My knowledge of this kinda stuff is very small, so some of it goes over my head a bit. I use XLD for ripping / converting. Though, last time when this happened on a different album I ripped using Apple Music, which isn’t my preferred choice, but it fixed this issue.
I have got xACT on my mac, but have hardly used it. How would I check out files with xACT after I’ve ripped them?
You check out the files with xACT after ripping by clicking on the shntool tab, then select the len option, add your files and click the Call Shntool button.
It’s normal that certain tabs of xACT only operate on certain file types. The shntool tab is the most restrictive. iirc it only works on waves.
So drop your m4a files onto the decode tab, decode them to wave, then drop the waves onto the shntool tab to check them for SBEs. There’s a FixSBE tab too.
Cool thanks. So really this shouldn’t happen that much, but on the times it does there is a couple of solutions. Either amend it like you said with xACT or re rip the music using a different program and checking the pop has gone.
