Poor sound quality.

I experience poor sound quality with Windows Media Player 11 and Media

Player Classic but NOT with VLC Player. By poor sound quality, I mean that

the sound becomes more 'gravely' or garbled as the loudness of a piece of

music increases. This can be heard whether playing CDs from the DVD drive or

playing stored media files from the hard drive.

I have experimented with adjusting the volume levels of the players, the

sound card and the speaker system but the problem seems to be in the sound

being output by the player not in how the level of its volume is adjusted.

I have turned off SRS WOW Effects, Graphic Equalizer and I have experimented

with Quiet Mode in WMP none of which solves the problem.

My sound card is a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi with the latest driver. WMP

FAQs addresses a file (ctmp3, I think) that is said to be incompatible with

Creative cards, and suggests finding it and re-naming it, but I've done a

thorough search and I don't find the mentioned file on my system.

I have the current K-Lite codec pack installed as well as AC3 filter.

Of course, I can always use the VLC player for clear sound, but things like

this kind of eat at me, I'm sure some others might identify.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks.