Hi to all,

OK, that may be something of an exaggeration, but I have a real hard core Windows problem for you here..

I appear to be having a problem with WMP 10, in the playback of MP3 files.

If I play a commercially recorded track that I have compressed to MP3 format and saved on my PC using WMP10, it comes out fairly distorted, particularly the bass frequencies.

Now, without changing anything at all (volumes, EQ…) in my sound out circuit, I play exactly the same file but with a different app (I’ve tried 2, RealPlayer and Power DVD) and it comes out just fine.
So the culprit just has to be WMP10.

I get this distortion with any MP3 file WMP10 plays, from whatever source.

I don’t get any sort of error message from WMP10 (“can’t find Codec…”, “damaged Codec”…)

For many months, I thought I was making distorted mp3s with Audacity but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Now, I was burning the midnight oil yesterday trying to research this one and it turns out that there is a suspect codec which provokes exactly this problem - CTMP3.acm.

So all I had to do was find this on my system, rename its extention and WMP10 would find a different, better Codec to use.

Only problem – I don’t have CTMP3.acm anywhere on my system.

Which leads me to a bunch of questions…

Is the choice of Codec determined by the file or the player? If it is the former, then why would I not be getting the distortion with other media players than WMP?

Is there some sort of interface between the media playing app. and the Codec which could be causing the problem? (Don't think it's the app itself - I have already re-downloaded and re-installed WMP10 to rule that one out)

How can I find out which Codec WMP10 is using to playback MP3s?

How can I tell it to use another one?

How can I correct the problem without making it worse (I don’t want to delete a Codec which works perfectly well with another app)

Many thanks

Marc

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