I-tunes Playback (strange problem)

[LordP]

Firstly, it might be unfair for me to blame i-tunes for this error, but i'm getting sick of the programme and wish i could link my i-pod to windows media player which i never had issues with.

But ok, my problem: Playing sound through my speakers in stereo works perfectly in windows media player but as soon as i play my tracks through i-tunes, general qaulity drops down (vocals are really quiet, with the occation background singer yelling out really loud.)
Fiddling around with general settings and equalizer i found no setting that would make my music listenable. And so went in search for the problem on google. Someone on there told me that the settings of Quicktime effected the playback in i-tunes. i tried opening quicktime, which wont load for some unknown reason, so i opened the settings that it had seemed to (unbeknown to myself) installed in my control pannel. Fiddling with those i still hadnt found a soloution.

Finally, at a loss, i opened the windows volume control and out of sheer annoance i slid the bar to play all out the right speaker... and low and behold, near perfect sound (if a bit quiet and obviously rather flat as it was being played in mono) trying this the other way and through my left speaker it also played clearly with the vocals and background music at the right level.

This confused me though, because in the quicktime controls i selected it to play back in mono and it didnt make a difference. And i cant find a setting in i-tunes that would edit the playback. What confuses me more, is why it works fine in windows media player.

My last point to is that i'm running AC97 audio configuration, although most of its settings are turned off.

Sorry to write sucha long essay about this but i'm at aloss at what to do and i thought the more infomation the more help some of you guys could be.

And if its a driver problem i'll need some help with that, dont understand those things.

[Lee Bartholomew]

Very unlikley to be a drivers problem, but it's always the things you don't suspect.

Are there any updates for the iTunes software? Normally if you use the bundled software it is out of date by the time you install it.

You could also try throwing out the Ipod and buying something decent IE a Zen.

Bl00dy Apple software

[LordP]

I have just downloaded the i-tunes 7 (which i know people have had endless problems with anyway) but this problem was before that, and the i-tunes update has done nothing to affect it.

[ducasi]

Very unlikley to be a drivers problem, but it's always the things you don't suspect.

I'd say it's very likely to be a driver problem.

By adjusting the balance you have proved that the audio is getting out of iTunes into the sound driver without corruption.

Try updating your sound drivers.

[Lee Bartholomew]

By all means give it ago. It's a nightmare if you have a board with intergrated sound. If this is the case, let me know what board you have and i'll try finding the drivers for you.

[LordP]

Sorry to be really thick, but how do i find the infomation on my sound card?

[ducasi]

Find "My Computer", right click and select "properties"...

In that window, under hardware I think, select "Device manager", and find your sound card... double-click it to get driver options...

[LordP]

Righto, under "sound, video and game controllers" theres a few options, but this one seemed the most likely:

Realtek AC'97 Audio : using driver version 5.10.0.5620


Thanks for all your help guys one day i hope to get myself up to speed with all this stuff!

[ducasi]

You could try downloading the driver on this page...

It will either have an installer itself, or via the dialog box I took you to before, you can uninstall and install the driver in that file.

Good luck!