To really get gapless playback, do not use local file sources with Spotify.
Spotify can play continuous albums perfectly when streamed from the network. It doesn’t accomplish this with local gapless mp3 files, though. Thus I’ve chosen to disable Local Files in its preferences. I don’t think I was benefiting from having them included,1 as I typically use other means to listen to my local music library.
Just use the following preferences under Playback for a gapless experience:
[x]Gapless playback[ ]Set the same volume level for all tracks
Individual tracks on any album usually have different peak volume levels. Enabling volume adjustment would result in distracting changes in volume between tracks within an album.
Some smart music players have an option to use album gain or no volume adjustment when playing tracks from the same album. Using radio gain (per-track volume adjustment) works best with playlists that mix content from different albums. Spotify doesn’t have this logic in it, unfortunately.
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There is some music that Spotify won’t let me listen due to geographical licensing restrictions, unless I have the file locally. ↩