Does anyone have experience of pops during playback with Media Center 9.0.180?
I use MC in what you might call an audiophile setup.
It seems these pops are totally random and pretty minor (ie. barely audible), when I hear one, I rewind to before the point I heard it and it is not repeatable and therefore not in the file.
I am running XP home on a Dell 1.8GHz Dimension computer. All my files are on Maxtor USB 2.0 hard drives and are played through a M-Audio 24/96 sound card via S-P/DIF to my stereo.
I have tried all the usual process-of-elimination stuff and can't seem to find a repeatable senerio.
Has anyone tried changing MC's process priority in windows? What is the highest I could go without affecting other stuff?
Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
I, too, am an audiophile. I have used MC9.0.180 and now 9.1.218. I don't use your soundcard, but I do use a Digital Audio Labs "Card Deluxe" whose output (digital & analog) gets pumped through a Proceed AVP and Proceed HPA2 amp and then through Thiel 7.2 speakers.
All the versions of MC9 that I have used to play (mostly APE format) audio files, and some MP3's using (--alt-preset extreme) LAME 3.93.1, have been virtually noise free. I have ripped over 300 CD's (mostly soundtracks) using MC9's secure rip setting, and only a very few CD's exhibit slight pops and ticks. I attribute this to these CD's containg uncorrectable errors even with secure rip mode using Plextor's latest, greatest "Premium" CDRW. However, when I do hear pops and ticks using MC9, they are repeatable in the same places in each audio file, and very low in level. Interestingly, the problem CDs have pristine surfaces, so I attribute the problem to manufacturing defects.
From your description, which is somewhat vague, it sounds as if your noise problem is not MC9.0.180 related since the pops and clicks don't repeat in the same place when replaying the mp3? file. Did you rip your audio files yourself, if so how did you do it? If you ripped the files yourself, I would re-rip a few files that have the noise problem with Exact Audio Copy in secure mode; or with MC9 in secure mode and see if the random noise still occurs. If the noises go away, then the problem was ripping related. Ripping in "burst" mode without a topflight CDrom (i.e. Plextor) can often result in pops and clicks. If this doesn't work then I suggest you take a close look at your hardware from CD drive to soundcard.
You didn't specify what process of elimination you used, but I also, suggest that you listen to your noisy files in Winamp or some other player? If you still hear the random noises, then you can pretty much rule out MC9 as the problem.
Hope this helps a little.
PS: KingSparta makes a good point, make sure you turn off any DSP extra processing on your sound card and in MC9, it certainly can cause problems.
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Topic: Random Pops and clicks...help! (Read 1176 times)