If you listern to classical, DJ sets or live performaces on your iPod, you either had to put up with track gaps, so you could select which part of the performance you listened to, or you ripped the whole set as one track and guessed where each part started and finished.
But not any more! As noted in this hint, Apple has released the Chapter Tool along with iTunes 4.9. This tool adds markers to an audio track, which means you can skip backwards and forwards. The tool is mainly aimed at Podcast producers, but I thought it could have uses elsewhere...
Before I set about trying to work out how the Chapter Tool worked, I decided to see if anyone else had first, and to my delight, they had. Wandering Focus has written a tutorial on how to produce gapless iTunes in three steps.
The final step involves an application called AudioBinder. This is basically a GUI for the Chapter Tool. The developer has changed the program since the original tutorial was written. AudioBinder now integrates with iTunes, so you don't need a script to export the XML file. This is much better, as the XML files I was getting included illegal characters and would cause AudioBinder to error. AudioBinder is donationware. If you give a donation, in return you get the full version, which enables you to include images and links as well as the track marks.
At last, gapless iPod music!
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2005081423571277