Unfortunately this is also the fastest way I know to merge mp3 files.

A good practice is to make a copy of the MP3s you want to merge in a separate folder then use ID3remover to strip the ID3 information.

Another trick which is especially handy with multi-CD audiobooks is to put the MP3’s for each disk into subfolders of an otherwise empty folder (i.e., Windows Internals\Windows Internals CD1, Windows Internals\Windows Internals CD2). The files should have the track number listed first so they sort in the order they should be played. At that point execute the following command within the root folder:

for /f “delims==” %A in (’dir /ad /b’) do copy /b “%A\*.mp3″ “%A.mp3″

Presto, one MP3 file per folder.

http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php

Here is a batch file to split an audio book from one large file to cd size chunks, and then dechunk those to individual chapters (detects blank sound and splits)

mp3splt.exe “%1″ -t 78.0 -d “%1_” -o “cd@n.mp3″

cd “%1_”
for %%a in (*.mp3) do mp3splt.exe “%%a” -s -p min=2.5 -d “%%a_” -o “trk@n.mp3″
del *.mp3

Also, make sure that all mp3s were encoded with the same bit-rate settings. You can see this with the eyeD3 tool as well.

darn, late again

cat track1.mp3 track2.mp3 > compilation.mp3