In reply to:

---

If the simple lack/presence of VBR headers on the file (the SAME FILE) removes/causes playback gaps, one might think of that as a bug in the empeg player software that should be corrected. Does anyone have more data on this?

---

This is what I've seen - I ripped and encoded an album with Lame VBR nogap, and uploaded it - no gaps. Then I added VBR headers to these same files (using Mark Lords mp3tool, IIRC) and uploaded into a different playlist. The new playlist had gaps - very tiny ones, as I mentioned before, almost like a click.

This means we can rule out anything in the ripping and encoding process. AFAICS, the bug is in either mp3tool or the player software. If someone can do the same test with a different VBR tool, we can be more confident it's a player bug.