Streaming services - gapless playback

[direwolf]

Does any streaming service offer consistent gapless playback, regardless of what software you use to play it back ('phone app / PC app etc) and what you feed it through (wired connection / streamer / wi-fi smart speaker / bluetooth etc).

eg, on Spotify, it has gapless playback / crossfade on the PC app that works fine (wired connection - PC to amp) but the minute I start using it with a Google Home Mini speaker for a bit of background music whilst working it introduces an ugly fraction of a second gap between tracks, especially jarring on live recordings or albums that flow seamlessly.

[aybesea]

I have had zero problems with gapless on Qobuz. Also had no problems on Tidal, although they are way too expensive. Had nothing but trouble on Deezer and Amazon. These days I self host much of the time using pCloud for storage and Cloudbeats as my player on Android (or iPhone), and Audacious on Linux. That way I have streaming gapless boots

[direwolf]

I have had zero problems with gapless on Qobuz. Also had no problems on Tidal, although they are way too expensive. Had nothing but trouble on Deezer and Amazon. These days I self host much of the time using pCloud for storage and Cloudbeats as my player on Android (or iPhone), and Audacious on Linux. That way I have streaming gapless boots

Thanks, you might have also inadvertently answered another question that's been floating around my head for a while. I'd wondered about streaming stuff that I had in my own online storage but when I've tried it with Mega etc, accessing it using a web browser only lets me play one track at a time, it doesn't play a whole folder. Looks like you've given me another option to explore that actually works :-)

[daemonspudguy]

I have had zero problems with gapless on Qobuz. Also had no problems on Tidal, although they are way too expensive. Had nothing but trouble on Deezer and Amazon. These days I self host much of the time using pCloud for storage and Cloudbeats as my player on Android (or iPhone), and Audacious on Linux. That way I have streaming gapless boots

For my music playback on Linux, I use DeaDBeeF. I've tried to use Audacious, but the lack of a plugin that lets me add a file browser as a rudimentary album selector, combined with the inability to sort things by disc number, makes it almost entirely useless for me.

[prudence2001]

I just installed DeaDBeeF, but I can't see how to add a column in the tracklisting window to show all entries by folder name. Tons of my flacs don't have album or artist or track number tags, so it makes it difficult to zero in on a specific folder (which is how I can easily recognize what I want to play). Is there a plugin that enables folder viewing? Looks like a good player though.

[daemonspudguy]

DeaDBeeF Filebrowser, on the homepage.