Windows Media Player


I just bought a set of Audioengine A2s. They sounded great in the store with nothing more than a MacBook Air. So I brought them home and hooked them up to my new Gateway computer. The sound is not all that great with Windows Media Player playing .wav files or mp3s. I also tried PowerDVD 10 player, and the sound is somewhat better but more different than anything else. With WMA the sound is slightly distorted and pulses some, is noticeably louder at times, and it just distracting. PowerDVD 10 gets rid of these problems but is still lackluster. I want my A2s to sing like they did with the Mac. I'm not trying to do audiophile sound, I just want cleaner sound than I am getting and to be able to enjoy them while computing. What to do?

BTW, I checked the driver (Realtec I think) on my machine and it is the newest. Then installed the PowerDVD 10 with only somewhat better results. I also Googled my problem and really didn't find any definitive help in a couple of hours. I'm hoping I can get some solid direction here.
pokey77
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
I can give you some options to try. For windows, you can download a free program called Foobar2000. It does look a little dated but it is very feature rich and reliable. Some may perfer other programs, but you should be able to get everything you need with Foobar. I'm not a big Windows fan and use Linux on a daily basis and Windows only when I must. Linux may be a very good option for you as well. It is very ease and simple to demo. Try this: Go to Distrowatch.com. Scroll down until you get to a list of 100 top linux distro's on the right side of the screen. Pick the one that say Mint. (It should be 1 or 2 on the list.). Go into mint and select the newest stable version of Mint 12 KDE and download it. If you get a choice between CD or DVD, chose DVD because you will get more apps. Once you download and burn the iso to a dvd, boot your system up from it. (Make sure your computer is set up to boot from CD/DVD.) At this point, you will be able to run the distro "live". This means nothing is changed or installed on your computer. The OS runs from the CD and RAM only. When you are done using it, take the CD out and reboot to go back to windows. I believe the app you get for music is Amarok. I would give it a try; you might like it (and the OS as well). If you really like it, you have the option to do a full install and run it next to windows. If you chose to try any of this, let us know what you think.
could also be that the soundcard in your gateway just isn't very good--most of the audio snobs on this site (myself included) use an external dac for computer audio, which almost always improves sound significantly. there's a gazillion threads on the best dac for your budget.
My guess is and guess only, you were probably listening to files that were 16/44 or better in the store demo and at home you might be using 320k or so now. There is a noticeable quality difference. The above suggstions from the other 2 guys will get you going. I'd download foobar 2000 also, it runs smooth and tells you what resolution and bit rate the files are that are playing. Also, you didn't say, but I guarantee your store demo used some sort of DAC. What about you? Night and day improvement there.
Good Luck, Tim