Windows Media Player - sound quality?

[kalniel]

I have been using wmp10 for a while now, to listen to music while on the computer. I noticed that particularly intense sections of music distorted a little - I thought first my speakers were going (LA 5020), then wondered if it was the sound card (audigy 2 zs) when headphones produced the same.

Last night wmp said there was an update for wmp10, and on looking at the update said it was going to install a new version of wmp10.

Of course it didn't, it went and installed wmp11 . Anyway, looks nice, I go to play some music and AGHH! Really bad distortion all over the place.

Realising the software had something to do with it I tried winamp lite and immediately the music was what it should be - completely distortion free even in intense sections.

So any idea what causes WMP to distort mp3 tracks so much?

[toolsong]

From http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...ing_files.mspx

Q. Why do I hear audio distortion while playing an MP3 file?
A. If you hear audio distortion when playing an .mp3 file, find the file Ctmp3.acm on your computer and rename it to Ctmp3.bak. The Player isn't fully compatible with the Ctmp3.acm file, which is a Creative PlayCenter MP3 decoder.




I seem to remember the master out for Audigy's should be set to only 50% to prevent clipping

[kalniel]

I don't even have creative play centre.. but I'll try and look for that file, thanks

Master out is usually below 50% anyway - it's a loud output.

[kalniel]

File isn't on my computer or referenced in the registry.

[toolsong]

All I can suggest is that you spend some time searching the Hydrogen Audio and Head-Fi forums

[TheAnimus]

is it purely on mp3 format music?

[kalniel]

Not sure to be honest. Mp3 format is the most badly distorted, but I've noticed clipping playing CDs through wmp as well. But winamp is clear.

[TheAnimus]

wmp is effectivly a front end to the multimedia audio system on your PC. Winamp just uses the channel to send PCM data straight to the sound card in big buffers, these are then used by the driver to play audio, but because winamp works, we know the problem is higher up. It sounds like its in the codec system, convert one of the mp3s that sounds bad to a wav and play it in wmp and you (if my guess is right) will hear it fine.

So you need too look at the codec if thats the case.

try running something like superpi twice, whilst playing in winamp, see if you get the same distortion, see if it gets worse in wmp.

I'm just off out or i'd help you with some actually usefull info, if no ones explained tommorow i'll give you more details.