Windows Media Player

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

Well, I've tried selected advice here so far. Just as a preferrance, I wanted to keep WMA and not rely on a different player. So I have used it and compared it to the CD drive and its not as good as the CD drive playing the CD, but it is better than before I started applying your suggestions. I have also tried the PowerDVD 10 software that I noted in my first post was already on my computer. I think I like it a bit better than WMA for playback only. Now, to answer the questions asked by all:

Al, disabled the antivirus and that made no audible difference.

Speakers are plugged into the headphone jack at the rear. Doesn't seem to be any other way to connnect them.

I defrag too much according to you Al!

Got all my settings straight by right-clicking on the task bar speaker. This did seem to help some and now pulsing is gone or at least mostly so. While in this area, I did click again on the button to update the driver and to my surprise, it updated the driver and I rebooted after the update. Not sure it made any significant difference, but I am glad I have the newest driver now.

Moved some .wav files to my external hard drive. Sound is pretty much the same.

Went to the Task Manager to see if any processes were running. This is where I found some processes running and turned them off. There was an immediate change in sound and maybe resolution. They were three desk apps that showed computer CPU usage, hard drive usage, and a weather app. They were indeed using significant percentage.

Tried the Dxdiag.exe app and it showed that there were no problems found.

After all of this, the music indeed sounds better. I prefer the PowerDVD 10 software, which sounds much closer to the music being read from the CD drive. WMA is also indeed better, but still has some of that upper-midrange grit and distortion, which is what makes it "lackluster" as I'd previously stated.

I have noted several Foobar 2000 suggestions. May try that in the future. Sticking to WMA for now.

I'm not sure how to tell 16/44 files from 320k files as noted by Timlub. I know that the files I have listened to today are .wav and are quite large, like Al said, about 30 MB for a three-minute file.

I have definitely used EQ settings in WMA where I adjusted the individual bands and that helps some for sure. Also, one of the presets in the PowerDVD 10 software is nice.

I have not tried an upgraded PC on my computer, but that is a bit farther than I've been willing to go. But thanks for the thought.

So, these are my findings and though I'm pleased, I don't think I'm all the way there yet. Seems that WMA should be able to sound a bit better, read cleaner, if it weren't for the upper-midrange still being slightly distorted after these changes (and the BIOS has not been updated). Actually, you'd think WMA would be better than the CD playing in the drive because WMA is reading a loss less file.

Thank you all very much for the help. And I'm still open to more suggestions. BTW - Somebody refresh me on how to get email notification when a thread is updated.

Al, indeed, I have the PO1-B1 7/8/2011 BIOS, not the updated file. But I'm not sure how to update it. I hoped to see an update button while I was in the BIOS but didn't.

Good progress!

If the programs you disabled restart automatically when the computer is booted, you can prevent that by one of several means, depending on the particular app. First, see if the app itself offers a means of enabling or disabling automatic startup. Next, if that is not possible, see if it is listed under "Startup" in the listing of installed programs under the Start button. Delete its entry if it appears there. Next, if it does not appear under "Startup," enter "msconfig" in the search box under the Start button, click on the corresponding search result, and uncheck the item in the "Startup" tab, if it appears there. The final possibility is to enter "Services" in the search box, then click either "Services" or "View Local Services," then right-click the entry for the particular service, and select "Properties" and then "Startup Type." Take a look at the "Dependencies" tab before changing the "Startup Type" setting, to see if there is anything else you might be affecting.

As far as the BIOS update is concerned, I would do that only as a last resort after all other approaches are exhausted. In the meantime, it would probably be a good idea to email Gateway and ask them if they can tell you what the changes were intended to accomplish, and specifically if any of them are audio-related.

According to this reference the update procedure is simply to download the latest BIOS file, and start the update process by double-clicking the icon for the downloaded file. A BIOS update is usually straightforward and takes very little time, probably less than a minute once it is started. HOWEVER, if something goes wrong, perhaps because of a bug in their software, or if power were to happen to drop out during the update process, the computer can be "bricked" (i.e., rendered inoperable, and repairable only by replacement of the integrated circuit chip that stores the BIOS on the motherboard). That is why I suggest not doing the update, at least for now.

Also, in some cases doing a BIOS update on a computer from one of the major manufacturers can necessitate re-activating Windows with Microsoft, although that is not a big deal and can often be done via the Internet with just a few mouse clicks.

Since playback from a CD gives good results, you have proven that there is no problem involving the computer's DAC function, or compatibility of the output impedance or other characteristics of the audio circuitry with the speakers. And given that playback of .wav's from either the internal or external drive gives similar results, my guess is the thing that should be focused on next is the possibility that your .wav's do not have bit-perfect accuracy. Try EAC. (Note that EAC is NOT one of the converter programs that are linked to on that page). It can also be downloaded here.

As far as automated email notifications are concerned, I don't think there is a way to do that.

Continued good luck!

-- Al

I have something here that you may want to try. In a previous post, I recommend that you give Linux a try because a lot of people (including myself) seem to be having good results with regards to sound quality. Instead of going about it the way I mentioned in my first post, you may want to check this link out instead.

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/How-Linux-Ubuntu-1004-1104-and-DeaDBeef

This link takes you to a guide on how to get the best sound from Linux. It was put together by an audiophile that uses Linux and wanted to achieve the best results. Basically, you get a very detailed walk through starting with downloading and installing linux OS. After the install it goes into how to configure the OS for the best sound quality possible. Once that is done it gives instructions on downloading, installing and configuring an audio player for best sound just like with the OS.

From what I can see, nothing is left to chance. There are a lot of small steps involved but the instructions are very clear; a beginner should have no problems working through the process. I can't comment on sound quality because I just went through it myself. Also, I was reading through some of your posts where you are concerned about system performance. Linux uses FAR less system resources than both Windows and Mac. Anyway, I hope this info can help you out in some way.