Breaks in recordings

  • 28 December 2021
  • 9 replies
  • 78 views

I’m a new subscriber. The first listening session was Pierre Boulez conducting Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This is a nearly continuous work and it was ruined by breaks in the recording at various points. What is the reason for this? It’s not on the original recording. On the positive side I listened to Harnoncourt’s Beethoven 4 and 5, which were absolutely stunning. However I was really disappointed with my first experience and it’s turned me away from listening to it again. Any tech answers please?


9 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Gapless playback works in the meantime in the mobile apps and the Deezer web player, but not in their desktop app, so I guess you checked it there.

Also support for “360 by Deezer” has been deprecated as well, so there will not be a solution for that problem.

By the way, Spotify’s web player does not support gapless playback (listening to An Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss with it right now), only their desktop app and probably their mobile apps.

Same here. Trying to listen The Wall and those breaking between songs are really frustrating and ruining the music. Should say that spotify does not have this issue. Deezer really could fix it long ago. 

PS. The entire album was downloaded. So network is not the reason. 

Thanks for that. I should have made it clear that I only get this problem with 360. Those 360 recordings which do work, such as Beethoven 4 and 5 by Harnoncourt are a wonderful new listening experience and make stereo sound rather flat in comparison. However I know that only a handful of headphones are 360 compatible. My overall impression of Deezer 360 is that the current content ( of those things of interest to me) is simply not up to scratch. Many are very old (Sony) recordings and no matter how much remastering and manipulation they will never sound as good as modern recordings.

 

I have also tried Amazon Music and have been impressed with their 360, Ultra HD and ATMOS offerings. Until Spotify get their act together and start offering a lossless service and spatial sound then I will probably go with Amazon for the time being. 
Happy listening!

Userlevel 7
Badge +8

On iOS devices gapless playback should already work though, you might have to enable the special feature in the Deezer Labs tab of your settings which uses a “live” re-encoding even for MP3 files, i.e. for HQ quality. For HiFi quality (lossless FLAC streaming) this should already work without this extra option for iOS users. You might have to become a beta tester for the iOS version of the Deezer app, not sure about that, but I remember there was an official announcement by Rudi, the former community manager. Or maybe you haven’t enabled HiFi streaming on your iOS device yet, it is hidden under the Custom settings somewhere, as far as I know.

It is possible that the “360 by Deezer” app and catalogue does not deliver gapless playback though, I don’t use it, so I cannot check. These are in a special spatial audio format by Sony, so there might be other issues regarding gapless playback.

As you mentioned Beethoven, you can also check any recording of his 6th symphony “Pastorale” where movements 3-5 should not be interrupted with gapless playback.

Last but not least, if you can wire your Sony headphones to your iOS device, you might even hear more details than using the wireless Bluetooth connection with HiFi streaming.

Thank you for your comprehensive reply and it’s good to know that the problem is not at my end. I’m using the excellent Sony 1000mx4 headphones with iPad/iPhone with Bluetooth on highest available quality. It seems such a basic problem that I am surprised that Deezer engineers haven’t yet solved it as it is a major turn-off as far as I am concerned and probably won’t subscribe until the problem is sorted!

Userlevel 7
Badge +8

What you are missing is gapless playback on all devices or maybe only with desktop app and web player. There is a related idea on this forum where you can still vote for it, also other related threads with complaining about it for several years.

Basically all classical music which does not have a pause between movements suffers from this (most operas, too), but also well-known progressive rock albums from bands like Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons etc.

So this is a known issue, and Deezer developers are already working on it, e.g. for iOS and Android there are solutions, also depending on your chosen or available audio quality, i.e. MP3 or FLAC streaming.

Have you managed to find a solution to this problem please?

I should have mentioned that this only seems to happen on 360, the standard streaming seems to be OK. 
These albums are amongst those affected to which I have listened so far:

Pierre Boulez   Bartok : concerto for orchestra

Pierre Boulez. Stravinsky. Le Sacre du Printemps and Petrouchka

Leonard Bernstein.  Rhapsody in Blue, but mainly in Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Sommersnachtkonzert.  Daniel Harding, especially Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini 

 

In general there seems to be a cut in the playback in between tracks and in certain cases skipping before the track has finished. Do you want any other info?

Userlevel 7
Badge +10

I’m a new subscriber. The first listening session was Pierre Boulez conducting Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. This is a nearly continuous work and it was ruined by breaks in the recording at various points. What is the reason for this? It’s not on the original recording. On the positive side I listened to Harnoncourt’s Beethoven 4 and 5, which were absolutely stunning. However I was really disappointed with my first experience and it’s turned me away from listening to it again. Any tech answers please?

Hey! could you please send me the link of the work from deezer.com? I will check this for you. 

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