Every CD I have of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (I think I have three different versions now) splits the variations into separate tracks. When listening to the CD directly, each track moves seamlessly into the next, as intended. On an MP3 player, however, each track is a separate file, and so there's always a blip of silence between each variation, sometimes even cutting off the last couple of notes of the track. And each variation is less than a minute long, which makes the blips especially irritating. I don't listen to CDs directly any more, so I haven't been able to enjoy this piece of music in years.
Technical note: I'm not talking about extra silence that some MP3 rippers sometimes put around a track, which is often configurable. I do blame the ripper (iTunes in this case), but I'm not sure the player (iPod) could play better files without the gaps.
For now, I may have to tear open the MP3s with an audio editor and stitch them together into one long file, or go back to the original CDs and figure out how to rip the whole thing as one track. Any other suggestions? Would other codecs do a better job? AAC?
When ripping with iTunes, simply select the tracks on the CD, then choose Advanced > Join CD Tracks. This tells iTunes that these separate tracks are all part of one piece of music. Then when you rip, they'll be ripped as one MP3 file.