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[JohnT]

A possible ripping/mp3 encoding issue may exist in MC 9.1.256.

CD's which play perfectly on standalone cd player, when ripped in MC 9.1.256 (in secure and/or ECC modes) exhibit a few pops at beginning of some tracks. No DSP is being used to playback lame mp3s recorded with a CBR320 setting using MC9's internal lame 3.93.1 dll downloaded from Media Center plugins.

Tried ripping the same CD (James Horner - Titanic) with MC9.1.256 (secure and ECC modes) and with EAC (secure) for comparison. Playing the same mp3 track (James Horner - Titanic - "Hymn To The Sea"  15MB), separately ripped with EAC and MC9.1.256 results in pops in MC9.1.256, but no pops when played with WMP9. The pops, most of the time, only appear toward the beginning of the track; the first 30 seconds or so.

This problem is not specific to the Titanic CD, but happens on many others as well.

Using Plextor Premium CD-RW to rip. Running XP Pro SP1. P4 3.06GHz cpu, 1 GB DDR.  Also tried different drive to rip (Pioneer DVR105) with same results.

[JohnT]

Does the track that you ripped with EAC have pops in it when played with MC?
Is WMP9 playing the CD in analog or digital mode?

[Rizlaw]

Does the track that you ripped with EAC have pops in it when played with MC?
Is WMP9 playing the CD in analog or digital mode?

John T, the answers are:

1. Yes the EAC ripped mp3 exhibits pops in MC9.1. By the way, I didn't mention it in the original post, but I am using a CardDeluxe 24/96 sound card from Digital Audio Labs. I might add that in MC9.1 the pops do not always repeat in the same place, which tells me that it's not in the mp3 file.

2. Both MC9.1 and WMP9 are set to utilize the Digital mode of the CardDeluxe.

Finally, the TOSLINK digital out of the CardDeluxe goes to the digital input of a Proceed Audio Video Preamp.

[JimH]

Does your motherboard use the via chipset?

[Rizlaw]

Does your motherboard use the via chipset?

Jim H,

No, it doesn't. I have an ABIT IT7 Max 2 V.2.0. It uses an Intel 845PE chipset.

[Rizlaw]

For John T and Jim H,

While I was surfing the Net I came across the website - www.goldwave.com. They produce an interesting audio tool called "Goldwave". In their know problems section (is there any software without 'known problems'?) they make the following statement which can be viewed at http://www.goldwave.com/release.html:

"Due to a flaw in the Windows kernel mixer, short glitches or clicks may occur at the start of playback or at the beginning of a recording. Use the "Alternative playback initialization" option in GoldWave (press F11, Device tab)."

I am not certain that this has anything to do with the pop/clicks I am now hearing in MC 9.1.256 and 257, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to mention it.

[Rizlaw]

Since my original post of this problem, I haven't seen an answer from anyone at J River or a build addressing this issue.

While waiting, I changed MC 9.1.260 to output wave audio from my Card Deluxe's analog outputs. In this mode, there are significantly less random pops or distortions in the playback audio stream of either mp3's or ape files. When they do appear, it seems to be at the beginning of a new track.

The problem seems to be related to MC9's digital output or an interaction between MC9.1 and the Card Deluxe in digital output mode (using the latest Card Deluxe driver).

DAL (Digital Audio Labs) has announced a new WDM driver for this card which will be released sometime in November 03.

In the meantime, I hope J River is trying to figure out why the random pops and distortions occur when using WAVE - digital out.

[JimH]

Since my original post of this problem, I haven't seen an answer from anyone at J River or a build addressing this issue.

Both johnt and I are from JRiver.

This sounds like a sound card issue.

[Rizlaw]

Jim,

I know that you and John are from J River. You could very well be correct about the sound card, but I should point out that an identical Card Deluxe sound card on another computer of mine running MC 9.0.180 does not exhibit this problem AT ALL. However, the other computer, only plays APE files while the computer with the problem only plays MP3 files. The only other significant difference between the two is that the "problem" computer has an ABIT IT7 Max 2 ver 2.0 mother board and Intel 845PE chipset, while the non-problem computer runs an ABIT BH7 with the same chipset. Both run XP Pro SP1 with all the latest updates including DirectX 9.0b.

[JohnT]

If the mp3 file plays fine in WMP9 but has pops when played in MC, maybe it would help to send the file here to see if we can reproduce the popping noise.

johnt @ jriver.com

[Rizlaw]

Thanks for the offer John T. But I don't believe that sending you the mp3 files would help you or me. I believe that no matter what mp3 file(s) I sent you, they  would all play perfectly on your computers. You would need a duplicate of my setup to try and get the same problem.

I have spent quite some time analyzing the problem and I really don't believe it's in the mp3 files created with MC 9.1.xxx (LAME 3.93.1 "--alt-preset insane" = CBR 320).

As I have mentioned in prior posts, the pops and ticks do not repeat in the same place each time. For example, take a 1 minute track. The pops may appear at the very beginning or ten, or more, seconds into the track. If you immediately stop the track and start it again, the pops WILL NOT appear at the same point on the second play - for that matter, they may not appear at all.

Furthermore, if you burn the track(s) (as an mp3 data disc with Nero 6.0.0.15) and play them on a standalone dvd/cd player (i.e. Sony DVP NS715P) the tracks all play perfectly. So something is going on between the hardware and software of the computer to generate this problem.

The Card Deluxe folks are coming out with a new WDM driver for this card in November (the driver is currently in beta testing). As soon as the new driver is available I will download and install it. If this doesn't work to solve the problem I guess I'll have to live with it on this particular computer.

As I also mentioned, this problem is not occuring with MC 9.0.180 on another computer I have with the identical type of pro grade soundcard.

[kiwi]

What output mode are you using? DirectX, Waveout or ASIO?  Does it make a difference?

kiwi