Sound distortion on eMac

Hey everyone,

I'm having an issue with the sound quality of songs imported from CD into iTunes.... regardless of the encoder I use or the settings (bitrate), I always end up with serious distortion when I listen to the results.

1. I've tried MP3 and AAC at 320 kb/s, as well as AIFF and WAV
2. I've played the ripped files back on other devices and they sound fine
3. I've tested headphones, external HiFi via the headphone jack, as well as the internal speakers - problem is always there
4. The source CD sounds fine when played back through iTunes.

The distortion isn't so noticeable on Rock / Dance sounds, but you pick it up straight away when you listen to a piano chord.

I'm stumped - I would have blamed the analogue circuits driving the speakers / headphone jack, except that the original CD plays back fine. Are there different paths for audio playback from CD and from disk?

cheers!

have you tried cleaning the lens? the cd will play fine, but when importing, the laser will pick up the slightest scratch or dust. also try cleaning the cd. and theres not different paths playing a cd and music from your hd, the starting point is different, but the path is still the same.

Another possibility - a long shot: If you have iTunes set to listen to the song as it is being ripped turn down the volume or turn off this feature. The eMac has had problems if the volume is too high but it usually shows up in screen distortion. Perhaps you're seeing a similar problem when you rip a song.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!

I'm now looking at iTunes as the culprit, because:

1. All compressed music sounds bad when played back through iTunes on my machine - regardless of whether the songs were ripped on my machine or not

2. When I play back MP3s though another player (LimeWire) on my macine, they sound fine.

The machine's under warranty, but it would be hard to pin this to a hardware problem. I've tried a simple delete and re-install of iTunes, to no avail. I guess I'll just have to keep searching!

cheers!

If a file plays correctly in one software player but not the other on the same machine it seems very unlikely to be a hardware issue. Have you tried turning on/off sound enhancer in iTunes preferences? Also have you made sure the equalizer is not on and set to some bizarre value?

D'oh!

I can't believe how much time I've wasted on this issue!

Yes, the equalizer WAS set to some bizarre value, and that was causing the whole problem. I also turned off the sound enhancer for good measure, but the equalizer was the culprit.

Thanks very much for your help.