The problem is easy to explain. I use MC in my entertainment room as an HTPC with a Harman Kardon receiver through HDMI. Unfortunately, the audio signals does not synchronize even when a silence is sent, leaving the beginning of any “cold started” track with a significant audio gap (at least 2 seconds) until the receiver kicks in. Using “Play All” will make this occur at the start of the first track only, and the following tracks, including gapless ones, will play fine. I have set DSP to upsample every audio track since “Play All” only works without that gap if the tracks are at the same sample rate (otherwise, there is a gap every time a different sample rate is used). But even with upsampling, every time I use “Play” instead of "Play All", the gap is present. This is also the case using SPDIF.
This matters little to me for video. For audio however, it is an unfortunate state of affairs for any music lover. I do understand that this problem is specific to hardware, but HKs are still fairly popular receivers. Sending a low decibel signal instead of a true silence would synchronize MC with my receiver, and eliminate the gap. I know this is the case with many other MC users, and I hope enough people will join me in asking for this feature. Matt is looking for 10+.