As you probably realize, there are a great many possible causes, so it's hard to give solid direction. But here are some things to try. I assume that you are using Windows 7:
1)Temporarily disable your realtime anti-virus protection.
2)If the computer has a headphone jack, try using that instead of the line out jack. It is conceivable that the output impedance of the line output is too high to be an optimal match to the A2's 10K input impedance. That wouldn't account for the WMP issues, but it might account for the "lackluster" sound with the other program.
3)Defragment the hard drive, unless the drive is an SSD (solid state drives should not be defragmented).
4)Right-click the sound icon in the taskbar, select "playback devices," then "speakers," then "properties." See if all of the settings make sense to you. In particular, under the "enhancements" tab make sure that "setting" is selected as "none", and under the "advanced" tab make sure that both boxes in the "exclusive mode" area are checked.
5)If you have an external hard drive, but are playing the files from an internal drive, copy one of them to the external drive and try playing it from there. And vice versa.
6)Open Task Manager (enter "task manager" into the search box that appears when you click the start button, then click "view running processes with task manager"). Select the "processes" tab, then check "show processes from all users," and while playing an audio file see if any unrelated process is consuming a significant cpu utilization percentage.
7)Open dxdiag.exe (by entering that term into the search box under the start button, and clicking the corresponding search result that will appear). Wait for the green progress bar to finish. Under each of the tabs other than "system," in the "notes" box, verify that "no problems found" is indicated.
If none of that gets you anywhere, let us know the exact model number of the computer, and perhaps researching that will lead to further ideas.
Regards,
-- Al
1)Temporarily disable your realtime anti-virus protection.
2)If the computer has a headphone jack, try using that instead of the line out jack. It is conceivable that the output impedance of the line output is too high to be an optimal match to the A2's 10K input impedance. That wouldn't account for the WMP issues, but it might account for the "lackluster" sound with the other program.
3)Defragment the hard drive, unless the drive is an SSD (solid state drives should not be defragmented).
4)Right-click the sound icon in the taskbar, select "playback devices," then "speakers," then "properties." See if all of the settings make sense to you. In particular, under the "enhancements" tab make sure that "setting" is selected as "none", and under the "advanced" tab make sure that both boxes in the "exclusive mode" area are checked.
5)If you have an external hard drive, but are playing the files from an internal drive, copy one of them to the external drive and try playing it from there. And vice versa.
6)Open Task Manager (enter "task manager" into the search box that appears when you click the start button, then click "view running processes with task manager"). Select the "processes" tab, then check "show processes from all users," and while playing an audio file see if any unrelated process is consuming a significant cpu utilization percentage.
7)Open dxdiag.exe (by entering that term into the search box under the start button, and clicking the corresponding search result that will appear). Wait for the green progress bar to finish. Under each of the tabs other than "system," in the "notes" box, verify that "no problems found" is indicated.
If none of that gets you anywhere, let us know the exact model number of the computer, and perhaps researching that will lead to further ideas.
Regards,
-- Al