Windows Media Player

First of all, let me thank you all. I'm going to try the items you've all noted above and hope that I find the culprit. And if I can't, I'm headed down to Magnolia Design Center where I got the A2s and see what they say.

Yes, I have Windows 7 and WMP 12. I have listened to .wav files I just ripped to my system last weekend as well as many .mp3s. Not a huge difference between them. Maybe that's telling me (us) something?

I'm not trying for audiophile sound on my computer. I just think it could and should be allot better than it is now. I really don't want to spend much more on the issue. Already spent the two hundo on the A2s. The way it sits now, they are not much better than the $30 Logitech speakers I had before. And the A2s smoke them cause I heard the A2s with nothing more than a MacBook Air. -No external dac. So, there's definitely something wrong with the audio coming out of the computer. I am doing that via the headphone jack on the back panel.

My computer system was purchased about two months ago. It is a Gateway SX2855 with i3 Intel processor and 4 gigs. I removed all the bloatware and slimmed it down as much as I could. I run defrag most every day and keep up with Advanced SystemCare 5. Only other thing differnet than stock is a wireless keyboard and mouse. I use NOD32 anit-virus/spam and Windows fire wall.

Again, thanks for the help. I'll update this thread tomorrow after I sit down and try out the helpful suggestions you've all provided. I hope and pray I'll find it.

Well, it sounds like you've been doing a lot of the right things. And the machine looks like it should be a reasonably decent performer, certainly powerful enough to cleanly handle .wav and mp3 files.

I use NOD32 myself, although just the anti-virus program rather than the full "Smart Security" suite which it sounds like you are using. The NOD32 a-v is about as good as it gets among a-v programs in terms of having minimal impact on system performance. I have no particular familiarity with the other components of the suite, though.

Defragmenting on a daily basis strikes me as overkill, actually, which will result in unnecessary wear and tear on the hard drive. For typical computer usage, once every week or two should be more than enough IMO.

Good luck with the experiments! Regards,

-- Al

Al,

I use NOD32 Antivirus 5, which has antivirus and antispyware. That's it. Was highly recommended and seems to work pretty well.

I'm after it tomorrow. Hopefully find the cure. It's gonna be a wet one here this weekend, so I'll have plenty of indoor time for computing. Thanks again.

A few further thoughts:

1)The Gateway site indicates that a BIOS update was released on 11/21/11, which was about two months before you purchased the computer. So conceivably that update is not present on your machine. Unfortunately the site doesn't indicate what the changes were, but perhaps one of them was audio related.

The version of the installed BIOS should be indicated briefly when you start the computer. The version released on 11/21/11 was P01.B2.

2)If you haven't already, try playing a CD directly from the machine's optical drive, and see if you get results that are the same as when you play the corresponding .wav file from the hard drive.

3)Look at the file sizes of the .wav's, as a rough check to verify that they weren't inadvertently compressed during the ripping process. A 3 minute track should be roughly around 30 MB.

Regards,
-- Al

Just getting started here. Haven't checked on the bios yet, but I have played a CD in the drive and it is much better. At least acceptable and I've used the equalizer and it does not seem to be negatively affecting the sound and the pulsing in volume and distortion is not present like when playing from the hard drive.

I also checked some of the .wav files and they are indeed around the size you suggest they should be. I'm now gonna start with the list of recommendations in this thread and try to get to the bottom of this issue.

Again, with a CD in the drive it sounds pretty good, much better than the .wav being played off the computer.

Muchos Gracias Al.

Warren