Can't play MP3s

[SP250]

"Doug" <umdo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ceeXa.602913$ro6.13...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
>
> "dadiOH" <xi...@gbronline.com> wrote in message
> news:uHmdndczWdo...@gbronline.com...
> > "Doug" <umdo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:bgh4ql$k4g$1...@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca...
> > > dadiOH wrote:
> > > > "Doug" <umdo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:I9TWa.590194$ro6.13...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca...
> >
> > > > As you said, it is the sound card's job to turn digital data into
> analog
> > > > sound. And vice versa.
> > > >
> > > > When you play a CD, the digital data (wave) is sent to the sound
card
> > and
> > > > comes out as sound.
> > > >
> > > > When you play an MP3, the MP3 data is decoded to wave by the player
> and
> > sent
> > > > to the sound card. Only difference twixt it and an audio CD is the
> > > > necessity of decoding the MP3's digital "shorthand" data to digital
> > wave.
> > > >
> > > > Earlier, you said that one channel seemed much louder than another.
> > Have
> > > > you looked at a file with a wave editor to see what each channel
looks
> > like?
> > > >
> > > This sort of work I want to avoid at all costs, afterall, I'm know
> > > music/sound/mp3 expert. And as I said before, the files play just
fine
> > > on two of my other machines.
> >
> > It really isn't much work or difficult to interpret. A wave editor will
> > show you both channels and it is easy to see if the amplitude on one is
> > higher than the other. I mentioned it because vocals are often on one
> > channel with the rest on the other. Which seems to sort of tie in with
> your
> > problem of one being louder.
> > ___________________
> >
> > >> Also, aren't songs stored on cd in analog
> > > format already, and not wav format? I mean, when you rip a cd to make
a
> > > backup, doesn't it actually have to convert from the format on the cd
to
> > > the wab format?
> >
> > What's on a CD (or a tape or a hard drive) is digital...a numeric
> > representation of the analog sound. When you rip a CD the data thereon
> for
> > each track is copied and the resultant file is given a header so that it
> is
> > recognized as a wave file.
> >
> > dadiOH
> >
>
> So as you said:
> "What's on a CD (or a tape or a hard drive) is digital...a numeric
> representation of the analog sound".
>
> And as such its in analog format .... of course encoded "digitally".
Heck,
> all that computer can understand is
> 1 and 0, so the sounds are basically sort of fourier analysis stored on
the
> cd.
>
> Doug
>
>

OK I had a similer problem that took ages to figure out, Music appeared to
play ok but vocals were either nonexistant or muffled, Movies played the
sound track, but vocals again were muffled but ocasionaly came through load
and clear, very puzzeling! And the solution so simple: the output from a
sound card feeds L+R with a common earth return. The earth return on my
system was defect and so vocals which are useually centre biased (stereo
speaking) were cancelling out and what I was hearing through the speakers
was actually the difference between the L+R channels (i.e L-R.)

Try this experiment: play an audio cd (try something with widely separated
L+R channels like Mamas and the Papas California Dreaming ) and listen to it
through the headphone socket on the front of the cd player. Now compare this
to the output of the sound card. If you have good stereo separation then
you'll have to look else-where. If the sound card output is basically L-R
then check the speaker/headphone plug/wiring

P.S Audio output from a cd is analogue, and is fed to the soundcards audio
amplifier via a small 3 or 4 wire cable not the wide flat cable used to
transfer data. Yes there are digital outputs available on cd players and yes
when you rip an audio cd the raw data is transferred via the data cable.
This scenario is based on the most common connection used between cd players
and soundcards.

Hope this helps

G.

[Roy G. Biv]

"Doug" <umdo...@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:VHGWa.584474$ro6.13...@news2.calgary.shaw.ca:

> Hello to all, and really, a lot of thanks to all ahead of time who
> take the time with resect to this problem. It is quite the serious
> one, and I have no idea how to go about solving it, or even what could
> be causing it. I'll try to be very descriptive...for more details
> just ask:
>
> The Problem: I can't play MP3s clearly on ANY player, including
> winamp 2, 2.09, 2,9, 3, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer. As a
> matter of fact I get bad quality on avi's as well, divx inclusive.
> What I mean by clearly is that if I'm playing a song lets say, the
> music is loud and clear, but the singers lyrics can hardly be heard.
> Basically, the song sounds as if it were recorded in a church where
> the echo would drown out any words in the song, and actually, this
> echo is there. It sounds really weird, and I must admit it's very
> hard to describe.
>
> The System: Pentium 200 Mhz, yes its old, but all worked fine 1 month
> ago (I've posted with regards to this problem before, but then when I
> thought it wen't away, it's back now...fresh after an all complete
> system reinstall), 32 megs or RAM. Like I said, it played mp3's fine
> 1 month ago, and I have a Pentium 133Mhz with 16 megs or RAM playes
> MP3s just fine!
>
> Actions taken up to now: as I stated, this problem occured before, and
> then went away again. It was suggested by a few that this problem
> could be caused by add-ware shipped with kazaa. When the problem
> again came back (2 days ago), I finally decided to re-format the
> entire system (fdisk, format ...the whole nine yards), then installed
> win95 and win 98 (clean and from scratch). After getting win98
> installed on the system, I installed the basic drivers for sound card,
> network adapter, video driver, and then tried winamp. And to my
> complete surprise, the same thing happens, the song/audio file, etc..
> playes really strange, with a sort of echo in the background with the
> lyrics drown out by the instrmentals (almost as if the "lyric layer"
> was decreased in volume while the "song layer" was increased in volume
> - if that's making any sense). Then I tried Windows Media Player 6.4,
> and the exact same thing occurs, can't play avi's, mp3... (didn't try
> other compressed audio formats). It does play cd's, but that of
> course is no surprise as playing cd format cd's isn't all that
> difficult for a cd-rom. I should also mention that when I play these
> songs on any player, my processor activity does not rise above 5%,
> thus eliminating the possibility that the old pentium is having
> problems keeping up with the decompression. Also, I was suspecting the
> sound card, but as already mentioned, I can play cd's just fine...
>
> Well, that's all I can think of which seems relevent for the time
> being... .
>
> Doug
>
>
>

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