Guess what!?
I put the cd I burned yesterday in my pc (was going to try to burn on it again) and the winamp program popped up and started playing the songs. Of course they sounded horrid and distorted on my pc, but---took it straight out to the car and it worked perfectly and sounds pretty good too.
I have no idea what happened. It was healed. lol.
Anyways, been burnin' 'em up. I've burned two more at 32x. I'll burn more at slower speeds to see if that improves them more.
I'm still contacting the dude that built my pc though. I assume it shouldn't be sounding this crappy. My old pc didn't, for sure.
Thank you all for your help and patience. Will let you know what the problem is with my pc, so you can help future newbies.
Thanks so much!