  The FRS-ESR facility at GSI provides unique conditions for precision
measurements of large areas on the nuclear mass surface in a single experiment.
Values for masses of 604 neutron-deficient nuclides (30<=Z<=92) were obtained
with a typical uncertainty of 30 microunits. The masses of 114 nuclides were
determined for the first time. The odd-even staggering (OES) of nuclear masses
was systematically investigated for isotopic chains between the proton shell
closures at Z=50 and Z=82. The results were compared with predictions of modern
nuclear models. The comparison revealed that the measured trend of OES is not
reproduced by the theories fitted to masses only. The spectral pairing gaps
extracted from models adjusted to both masses, and density related observables
of nuclei agree better with the experimental data.
