Can anyone tell me why my music downloads play back with background distortion? I get a repetitive scratching sound, but only 50% of the time. I assume this noise will also be audible on any CD that I burn from these tracks. Do I need to tweek something? Does it have to do with the Player? The quality of the download source? User ineptitude? What?!

Allow me to be more specific....
Since my earlier post, I have pin pointed that the static is during playback in my Real Player. It does not occur during playback in the Windows Media Player. ??? I doubt that this is relevant, but this only started after I began using Lime Wire Pro.
P.S. I miss Kazaa already! Not as many sources available.

Um... So... I don't think I really found my answer yet. The static remains audible in Real Player One, even after having closed all other operating programs. No noise when same mp3 files are played in Windows Media Player. Never had this problem when I used KaZaA, only since using LimeWire.

Steady on there, old Peerless !!!

You are not alone in your true knowledge re: the real evilness of Real Player... Bad Boogie, for sure...

I assume that it is now established that the downloaded goodies are OK except when an attempt is made to have Real Player do what it is supposed to do... In other words, they work fine when out of the nasty clutches of el basura Real Player
And there's a comment that all was fine and dandy in the valley until that LimeWire Pro thing arrived on the seen... Right ?

One thing for B D to try would be to install the basic set of codecs available from Nimo... I know others who have been successful with Real Player only after getting their codecs 'right' with Nimo... Makes WMP almost acceptable, as well !!!

If you want to try it, B D... Just click on the Nimo Codecs link in my sig below...

It would also be a very good idea to run Task Manager and see what sort of processor usage Real Player is gobbling up...

Last, see if there are any updates of drivers for the sound card.

Oooh, and be sure to disable any possibility of the player in LimeWire grabbing any 'associations'...

__________________
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Tomorrow's forecast:
Sunni in places, Shi'ite in others...

Oooops, just thought of another thing...

No, this is NOT crazy... You may want to do a serious, possibly multi-passes, defragmentation run on your hdd...
Some players are far more sensitive to defragmented files than others... Depends very much on buffer settings... So, one player might just make it with no audible problems while another will trip up...

Happens quite frequently and... AND, practically no one out there does proper routine maintenance such as at least weekly defragmentation runs... (Especially using Diskeeper, hint, hint !)

Yes, Mr. P ?

Your delightfully subtle (as always, dear) reference to the lame-assedness of the default Windozer deeeeeeeeefracturementer abomination is what made me make the slightly more subtle hint - hint that wise folks use Executive Software Diskeeper... hint, hint Mark II

Hey, BD...

I am in the midst of writing a rather humongous post on music files that 'skip' or are 'scratchy'...

Should be done in a day or two.

YEA! Trust me... my tail is wagging! I will watch for it Miss U.

I was just checking out your first piece of advice, regarding Nimo codecs. Explain in layman's terms... what are Nimo codecs? Going to the link did not provide much enlightenment. Remeber, I'm a little pup tryin' to learn how to run with the big dogs.