I just noticed that when using Media Server to play songs over a network, wave files do not play back gapless. When I play the files "directly" by navigating to the same songs in the same folder using the "My Computer" branch of the MC tree, however, I don't get any gaps. In other words, this is not a network issue -- it's specifically a Media Server issue.
Based on the behavior, it appears that Media Server does not pre-cache the next track in the sequence, therefore causing it to pause in between tracks as the next song loads. This does not happen when playing the same files over the same network without using Media Server. I tried playing with the buffering setting, but it doesn't seem to have any effect on this. When using Media Server, the buffering setting seems to actually be ignored.
I have no idea how long this has been an issue, but it's forced me to stop using Media Server to play certain albums since even tough I took the time to rip as waves (specifically to avoid gaps), Media Server still pauses between songs.
Thanks,
Larry