Gapless Playback In Plex

[wildchildassasin_gmail_com]

Gapless Playback In Plex

[anon18523487]

Support of gapless playback depends on the client. Most Plex clients do not support gapless playback. If this is something you really need, try PlexAmp. https://www.plex.tv/plex-labs/

[dgmelvin]

PlexAmp is not a solution to playing music via a client on a home theatre system. It is limited and hard to use with a large music library. I think this is something that Plex really must have to compete with things like JRiver that does have it on all their clients.

[ussalin]

Basically the worst flaw of plexamp is that there’s no version for Android

[OttoKerner]

Did you know you can use another Plex client to send queued up music to Plexamp?
So if you feel restricted by the minimalist interface, you can select your music with e.g. a Plex app on a tablet or in the web app and then connect to Plexamp.
This plays the play queue in Plexamp, utilizing it’s gapless playback ability (and loudness normalizing as well).

There is even an experimental version of Plexamp for the raspberry pi, which you could leave connected to your stereo. (Extended with a high quality DAC of course)

[ussalin]

so the volume is normalized by default in Plexamp?
why there is no volume control?

[OttoKerner]

There is volume control, but only with a keyboard shortcut.

And it’s the loudness that is normalized, not the volume. There is a (fine) difference.

[plex_greenhill_info]

Yatse works well for gapless audio on Android with Plex. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.leetzone.android.yatsewidgetfree

[txdeadhead]

I have seen music files where the song names contain special trailing characters that appear to indicate gapless to the next song.
Certainly this can be done with attributes even is they create one only used by PLEX.
They fix this, I upgrade to lifetime.

[ussalin]

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[krazygamerhead]

Gapless playback is a feature that should be integrated into the Plex Media Player software without the need for a secondary app when Windows Media Player and Kodi support it no problem. It’s the one feature that has been keeping me from completely switching over to Plex. My desktop is in the den with PMP running on it and I don’t want to quit the main app to use a secondary app for playback features that should be native to the software itself.

[anthonyjflynn]

Here is what I have found is trying to get gapless audio playback out of the Plex.

Roku 3 - Plex Channel , not gapless, but appears to do direct-play of flac files
- Roku Media Player Channel, not gapless, plus it has a terrible interface and appears to transcode everything to mpeg 192 kb for some reason.

X-Box One - Plex App, not gapless, and it will not skip or fast-forward within a track

Android Phone - Plex App, is gapless, but not really useful in terms of home theatre use
- Foobar2000, ditto

Nvidia Shield - Plex App, is gapless, good for Home Theatre use, will skip within a track, although not fast-forward, appears to direct-play everything.

So the Nvidia Shield, perhaps not surprisingly, appears to be the way to go for anyone who wants to add Music streaming with gapless capability from their Plex server to their home theatre. I am actually thinking of setting up a dedicated stereo HiFi component system separate from my home theatre strictly for music listening and I might pick up a cheap, small monitor to use with the shield instead of buying a fancy dedicated Network player, and see how it does. At least for now.

Maybe one day Plex will get around to adding gapless playback to their Roku and Xbox One apps, but at least now I know it is an app-level issue and has nothing to do with the server.

[zwaaa]

Why is this still not a thing in PLEX? Do I need to go to Subsonic to achieve this. WAKE UP!!! PLEX PASS SUBSCRIBER!!!

[Holy_Moses]

I cannot agree more… Plex on Roku is terrible for music. The gaps between songs and the constant clipping on following tracks make it virtually unusable. This is something that should be standard on any audio player.

[citycentrefox]

My tuppence worth…

I too was frustrated that gapless playback was not supported with Roku devices. I tried a few different servers that Roku supported and they still weren’t gapless!

I had to resort to connecting my phone to my AV amp via Bluetooth to listen to Pink Floyd, Jarre etc… Not exactly HiFi as the music on my phone is mp3 not FLAC/HiRes FLAC.

In the end I built a Raspberry Pi using an IQ Audio DAC hat and installed Rune on it. It is a free operating system written for the PI for playing music (There are others that are free but I found Rune to be more user friendly). It also has android & iOS apps available so it can be used with a smartphone/tablet as a headless unit. Mine sits behind the amp out of sight

It has played everything I have thrown at it including MP3 (@320 or less), AAC, FLAC (16/44.1, 16/48), HiRes FLAC (24/48, 24/96) DSF (SACD 24/88.2). It also supports Spotify (provided you have an account) and Apple AirPlay. It cost me £100 for PI board, DAC, Case, Power Supply & 16gb micro SD card. I dug out my old seperates system (Pioneer & Tannoy) and connected it up.

The sound from the Pi is excellent with normal FLAC files easily giving my Pioneer Stable Platter/Trichord Clock 2 CD player a run for it’s money . HiRes files do sound more “airy”. And it gapless too boot!

I now no longer use Plex for music. And never will again…

CCF

[mustardpie]

It is just silly that Plex does not have gapless playback as a universal default for audio playback for all client software. It should be built into the server side of the system so audio simply defaults to gapless playback. If Plex is going to present itself as an all around media server solution, it needs to respect the plain fact that many of its users listen to music that is destroyed by the insertion of gaps between tracks.

[kuyper]

It’s ludicrous that, in 2019, we still have to deal with gaps on playback. Replying to keep this thread alive, in the eternal hope that someone from the dev team will actually sit up, and take notice.

[jamez.kavanagh]

I agree too.
I’d like to see an official response from the Plex developers to understand why this is so difficult.
I’m using the Plex app on Mac OSX…

[mikedt_pobox_com]

Geeze, still no true gapless playback?? I tried Plex over a year ago and was put off by the 5-15 seconds gap it would put in between songs. Such a large gap that I thought my server locked up. Just installed the latest version and while it’s much better it isn’t gapless either. A pity given the pluses Plex Pass does have. I guess music playback isn’t that important. Maybe Emby works better…

[russbgrant]

The gap isn’t super bad, until you listen to a concert recording. Then it becomes clear that it’s horrendous.

This really needs to be fixed. Servers like Jriver Media Center can do it, PLEX should be able to do it too.

Unless they wont because there no gap when using Tidal…