Going back to the original topic (ALAC playback), below is a reply I just received today from B&O customer service:

//

So, keep your fingers crossed!

Now I hope they are working on gapless playback, however it seems to be for the distant future, not the near one unfortunately..I'm quite surprised people don't complain more about gaps when playing a Mozart symphony or an album from Enigma..it drives me crazy!

Totally agree with you Chris, they're making a lot of adverts about how good it is to have a "high end MP3 player" like the Encore, how "audiophile" it is, and it can not support this simple feature, which is just totally irritating (I stay polite) not to have.

So there are 2 things that makes me wait and see before buying an Encore :
1. The gapless playback (at least of FLAC, ALAC would be great too)
2. The lack of the interface to "link" its BeoNet to my BV (a BeoNet to ML converter, or, better, a new link module for BV...) I can wait for the new "circular BeoNet IR eye for link rooms"

By the way, chris, what was the question N°3??? Was it something like "can the Encore display the song information of tracks played in a webradio?" or something like "can the Encore display webradio logo?"

This may be a seperate discussion altogether, but:

It seems to me that B&O are not driving their own bus on this stuff. Many features seem to be dependant on the standards (UPnP, AirPlay, DLNA, etc.) that B&O adopt and less so on their own ideal set of features and capabilities. 

I wonder if things like gapless playback are somehow dependant on portion of the SW that B&O are not in direct control of. It has proven to be an annoyance for classical music listeners (who already have to deal with MOTS, which doesn't lend itself to classical and opera the way it does to other genres).

Trip, don't try to search excuses for the inexcusable...

If it's not on the Encore, it's not because of a communication standard (DLNA or what you want) : it's because it's not programmed well, that's all. Owners of the BS5 had to wait a lot for this simple feature, which is event not a feature, it's just "how it's supposed to work", and now they do the same error with the Encore. 

It's not DLNA/Upnp which is the problem, as even with direct connexion of a USB hard drive, it doesn't work. B&O can't continue to sell products with major flaws like that, it's killing them, doing exactly what B&O haters say : style over substance.

With the BS5, B&O had the excuse of using a full Windows PC and relying on the Windows Media Player platform, and its drawbacks with "non-Microsoft filetypes". But now with the Encore, it's a full B&O-specified architecture.

Without gapless playback, the technology can be compared to a Kikinoko/bad chinese disposable MP3 player, not to other expansive HIFI systems.

It's like building a new supercar and saying "oh well, you have the horsepower of a Ferrari, you have the style of a Ferrari... But you cannot steer, as we don't understand how a steering wheel works! Maybe we will add this possibility later"

I second this.

t

There is no excuse for the missing gapless playing. This pops up every now and then, in fact i was hoping that the flac support would adress this since its lossless like wma where it seems to be working.

Note that the gapless that we are so used to is actually a feature which on pods is activated trough an id3 tag if i am not mistaken

The most incredible thing for me is that my BeoSound 2 could play gapless, so does my BeoPort with Linkplayer or BMLink, so can a BeoSound 8 with an Ipod,  in others words the most expensive BeoSound cannot do what the cheaper ones can...so why bother "upgrading" if it turns out to a downgrade in listening pleasure??

And yes, my question nr 3 was about NRADIO displaying track & artist names , something impossible in BeoPort PC version, BeoPlayer app, and BS5 as far as I can remember (everytime I was looking at it in shops, the station's name was displayed, not track/artist).This is also a feature available on the rest of the world's netradio players, and one that changes regularly the display, making it more "alive"...and useful

That's really my point. I'm not making excuses, but rather wondering if the progression of features on certain platforms isn't, to some extent, out of their hands? That would make the situation worse, not better, in my opinion. If they're in control, then they can add features as they see fit. The fact that other devices in the brand can do it and they can't make one wonder.