Windows Media Player

First of all, let me thank you all. I'm going to try the items you've all noted above and hope that I find the culprit. And if I can't, I'm headed down to Magnolia Design Center where I got the A2s and see what they say.

Yes, I have Windows 7 and WMP 12. I have listened to .wav files I just ripped to my system last weekend as well as many .mp3s. Not a huge difference between them. Maybe that's telling me (us) something?

I'm not trying for audiophile sound on my computer. I just think it could and should be allot better than it is now. I really don't want to spend much more on the issue. Already spent the two hundo on the A2s. The way it sits now, they are not much better than the $30 Logitech speakers I had before. And the A2s smoke them cause I heard the A2s with nothing more than a MacBook Air. -No external dac. So, there's definitely something wrong with the audio coming out of the computer. I am doing that via the headphone jack on the back panel.

My computer system was purchased about two months ago. It is a Gateway SX2855 with i3 Intel processor and 4 gigs. I removed all the bloatware and slimmed it down as much as I could. I run defrag most every day and keep up with Advanced SystemCare 5. Only other thing differnet than stock is a wireless keyboard and mouse. I use NOD32 anit-virus/spam and Windows fire wall.

Again, thanks for the help. I'll update this thread tomorrow after I sit down and try out the helpful suggestions you've all provided. I hope and pray I'll find it.

Al,

I use NOD32 Antivirus 5, which has antivirus and antispyware. That's it. Was highly recommended and seems to work pretty well.

I'm after it tomorrow. Hopefully find the cure. It's gonna be a wet one here this weekend, so I'll have plenty of indoor time for computing. Thanks again.

Just getting started here. Haven't checked on the bios yet, but I have played a CD in the drive and it is much better. At least acceptable and I've used the equalizer and it does not seem to be negatively affecting the sound and the pulsing in volume and distortion is not present like when playing from the hard drive.

I also checked some of the .wav files and they are indeed around the size you suggest they should be. I'm now gonna start with the list of recommendations in this thread and try to get to the bottom of this issue.

Again, with a CD in the drive it sounds pretty good, much better than the .wav being played off the computer.

Muchos Gracias Al.

Warren

Well, I've tried selected advice here so far. Just as a preferrance, I wanted to keep WMA and not rely on a different player. So I have used it and compared it to the CD drive and its not as good as the CD drive playing the CD, but it is better than before I started applying your suggestions. I have also tried the PowerDVD 10 software that I noted in my first post was already on my computer. I think I like it a bit better than WMA for playback only. Now, to answer the questions asked by all:

Al, disabled the antivirus and that made no audible difference.

Speakers are plugged into the headphone jack at the rear. Doesn't seem to be any other way to connnect them.

I defrag too much according to you Al!

Got all my settings straight by right-clicking on the task bar speaker. This did seem to help some and now pulsing is gone or at least mostly so. While in this area, I did click again on the button to update the driver and to my surprise, it updated the driver and I rebooted after the update. Not sure it made any significant difference, but I am glad I have the newest driver now.

Moved some .wav files to my external hard drive. Sound is pretty much the same.

Went to the Task Manager to see if any processes were running. This is where I found some processes running and turned them off. There was an immediate change in sound and maybe resolution. They were three desk apps that showed computer CPU usage, hard drive usage, and a weather app. They were indeed using significant percentage.

Tried the Dxdiag.exe app and it showed that there were no problems found.

After all of this, the music indeed sounds better. I prefer the PowerDVD 10 software, which sounds much closer to the music being read from the CD drive. WMA is also indeed better, but still has some of that upper-midrange grit and distortion, which is what makes it "lackluster" as I'd previously stated.

I have noted several Foobar 2000 suggestions. May try that in the future. Sticking to WMA for now.

I'm not sure how to tell 16/44 files from 320k files as noted by Timlub. I know that the files I have listened to today are .wav and are quite large, like Al said, about 30 MB for a three-minute file.

I have definitely used EQ settings in WMA where I adjusted the individual bands and that helps some for sure. Also, one of the presets in the PowerDVD 10 software is nice.

I have not tried an upgraded PC on my computer, but that is a bit farther than I've been willing to go. But thanks for the thought.

So, these are my findings and though I'm pleased, I don't think I'm all the way there yet. Seems that WMA should be able to sound a bit better, read cleaner, if it weren't for the upper-midrange still being slightly distorted after these changes (and the BIOS has not been updated). Actually, you'd think WMA would be better than the CD playing in the drive because WMA is reading a loss less file.

Thank you all very much for the help. And I'm still open to more suggestions. BTW - Somebody refresh me on how to get email notification when a thread is updated.

Al, indeed, I have the PO1-B1 7/8/2011 BIOS, not the updated file. But I'm not sure how to update it. I hoped to see an update button while I was in the BIOS but didn't.

Alright, glad to understand I'm on the right path. I don't need a brick, so I'll leave the BIOS out completely. I'll see if ripping a .wav file in WMP can be done bit perfect. That'd be sweet. I thought I read something about error correction in WMP but forget where I saw that. I'll also take a look at EAC, which I remember having read good things about.

Hmmm. I thought that there used to be functionality here at Agon that allowed a person to subscribe to a thread so they got notification when it was updated. Oh well. Thanks Al for your help, all of it.

Xxqq250 - Much appreciate your encouragement to move to a more streamlined OS. I've thought of it before but just have never made the move. Everything is going quite smoothly at the moment with this new Windows 7 setup, so I'll just try to be content for now. I'll post if I decide to make the move. Again, thanks for your concern.

Well, I've used both WMA and PowerDVD 10 today. PowerDVD is much better sounding getting rid of the upper-midrange distortion that WMA displays. WMA is definitely better since doing all of the experimenting I did yesterday, but its not there yet.

I did turn on error correction for ripping .wav files. I also removed and re-ripped the disc I was listening to yesterday. Can't tell it made any difference.

In any event, if somebody with sound problems in general on their PC reads this thread, there are many great suggestions.

Thanks again for the help.

When I get some time I may try Foobar 2000. And EAC as well.

Finally, I'm really liking the Audioengine A2s. Pretty nice sound for $199, which is half of what I paid for the computer! But it makes listening at my computer much more enjoyable now.