Bacchanal

If this should go in another section, feel free to move it and accept my apologies, but I'm just lost.

My friend came over to my house and we were listening to Dangerdoom, he wanted me to burn him a CD of it and I did. Now, I downloaded the album so all the tracks are in mp3 format. The CD plays fine in my computer, my house stereo, my car stereo and his house stereo but for some reason when you play it on his computer just sounds like shit. You can't hear words, the music is all "crackly" and I don't know what to do.

I've tried saving the files to his computer so it bypassed the CD all together in case it were scratched or something. I've tried re-downloading the CD (and others) to his computer through the same service that I use and it still sounds terrible. It sounds bad through 3 seperate media players too, so I don't think that's it. It seems to play store bought CDs fine though, which is why I'm lost as to why it hates mp3s.

Is there anything to be done simply, or is he going to have to take his computer somewhere and have it looked at? Any advice on the matter would help greatly, and be appreciated even moreso.

Cynthetiq

From the sticky on how to use this forum...

bad or conflicting audio drivers?

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ratbastid

How about other mp3s or audio CDs on his machine?

I'm with Cynthetiq: he's got an audio problem on his machine.

xepherys

Well, you say CDs work, but MP3s do not. Typically, they play using two completely seperate functions on the PC. CDs, unless the drive is set to digitally play them, will play them like a CD player, and the CD player is directly connected to an audio port on the sound card that uses hardware processing to playback the tracks. MP3s have to go through a driver/software layer and then are still interpretted by the soundcard differently.

This could be an issue with drivers, possibly directx (if the player is using DX to playback), the physical card itself or the PCI slot the card is plugged into. It COULD technically be any number of other things, but those are the most likely. Does anything other than a CD playback normally? Say, a WMV or WMA file?

cyrnel

Does anything sound good from his computer? Unless I'm reading your description wrong, nothing sounds right on that machine. How about windows beep sounds?

What type of speaker/amplifier arrangement does he have? Any chance his PC sound level is maxed and the speaker/amplifier level is low?

Edit: Okay, I just noticed the store-bought CD's part. Are windows beep sounds okay? Does it sound overdriven? Open his PC mixer. Check the volume for Master, Wave, and CD Audio. Is Wave high vs. the other settings?

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Jinn

Blown speakers? I know that anything sounds like hell if you've got a blown cone..

EDIT: Nevermind, you added that it plays storebought CD's just fine.

Does he have a standalone audio card or is he using integrated sound? Have you tried opening the mp3s in multiple players? WMP, Winamp, iTunes?

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jujueye

This is mui confusio.

OK. You are confusing terms here, so I need to know: you have the CD as well as the MP3 version. Does the CD sound bad when played on the computer, or just the MP3s? Or is it a CD of MP3s?

So the MP3s were from someone elses rip of the CD? This is pretty important.

Don't take it anywhere. We can figure it out here.

Sounds cards normally will send the MP3 signal through the same mixer port as WAV files. Check the sound card "Playback" mixer settings (not the record settings). If the WAV mixer is cranked, take it down a notch.

What I am guessing at is that the MP3s were ripped incorrectly. Somebody set the volume too high when they did it and the audio signal is distorting, so when it is encoded to MP3 it is saving the distorted version of the file.

Bacchanal

I apologize for that. As I said it isn't my computer and I don't have access to it whenever I want. I don't even think he knows all that info. All I know for sure is that he has Windows XP Professional, and Internet Explorer. I'll try to get as much of that figured out as I can the next time I'm over there.

I downloaded mp3s and put it on an audio CD, not an mp3 CD. I don't have a store bought copy yet. Like I said, I downloaded other mp3s and they all sound bad, but if I put in a store bought CD it sounds fine. I know it isn't the quality of the rip because that same CD sounds fine on every other player I've played it through, it's just on his computer that they sound bad.

Every other sound seems to play fine. If, for instance, I go to ebaumsworld.com, all the videos, games and audio have good sound. Everything sounds OK when you start up and turn it off. It seems it plays everything well except mp3s.

I've played them through Winamp, WMP and some other media player that I've never heard of, the name of it escapes me. Same result every time.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll have to look into shit the next time I'm over there (probably tomorrow night). I'll keep you guys updated.

muckluck

If you downloaded the mp3s illegally through a service like WinMX, Limewire, eMule, or anything like that, they are bound to have shitty quality. What's the bitrate on the mp3s, and what software did you use to burn them to a CD? MP3s are more resource hungry then plain Audio CDs since the PC has to decode them, so if it is an old system it won't play them well. Try updating sound card drivers, make sure no other process is running in the background, and try different media players.

xepherys

But he said those same MP3s sound fine on OTHER computers and when they are converted to WAV and put on an audio CD... therefore it isn 't rip quality.

The only thing I can think of based on your last message, Bac, is that he has a bad codec that is playing back the MP3s. Maybe he has is a corrupted codec file, and somehow it still WORKS, just really bad. If no MP3 sounds good, in any player, but other things soung good through that player (Windows Media Player is a safe bet to try), then it's a codec issue. I can't think of anything else it could be except MAYBE a sound driver issue. Maybe...