- The CUE maps the audio in a "CD-native" way, like each track can have 1 or more indices, which enables things like pregaps. When you split FLACs into discrete tracks you need to figure out how to project that onto files, do you put the pregaps at the end of previous tracks? At the beginning of next tracks? In short, with a CUE you can emulate the CD experience more accurately.
- If you are seeding a torrent, you need to keep the original data intact.
I've been thinking about this recently too, mostly to figure out how to preserve indexes in tracks of "Murmurs of Earth"[0]. I think the FLAC embedded cuesheets could be used for this. While intended for CD-ready cuesheets embedded into one big FLAC, there's no reason they couldn't be used in individual files, with index 00 for pregaps.
I'm not sure it's well supported anywhere however. Maybe foobar2000?
Edit: I pulled up the RFC[1] for FLAC, and it seems like this is a use case they had in mind for the embedded cuesheet:
> A cuesheet metadata block can be used either [...] or to provide a mechanism to store locations of interest within a FLAC file.
- The CUE maps the audio in a "CD-native" way, like each track can have 1 or more indices, which enables things like pregaps. When you split FLACs into discrete tracks you need to figure out how to project that onto files, do you put the pregaps at the end of previous tracks? At the beginning of next tracks? In short, with a CUE you can emulate the CD experience more accurately.
- If you are seeding a torrent, you need to keep the original data intact.