darkpark

Wintermute, If you have Nero Burning Rom, then use a program called CD-Speed which will measure the performance of your cdrom drive. Run it on both drives to see which one is the best. If you don't have the program then you can always do a search for CD Speed which is freeware and downloaded it. As for ripping, I'd use either EAC (Exact Audio Copy) or CDex. Both are great ripping programs and free. If you do use either one, I would highly recommand that you also downloaded LAME. it's an mp3 encoder that is regarded as one of the best quality ones if not the best. when you search for LAME, get the "DLL" version of it and dump it into the directory of one of the above programs.

there are 3 popular formats out there: 1) SACD 2) DVD-Audio 3) DTS 5.1 here are the differences... 1) it's 20 bit audio (i don't remember the sampling rate) and it's multichannel 2) it's 24bit/96khz and two channel 3) 16bit/44.1khz (same as CDs) and it's also multichannel. now being that not all audio equipment is built the same Mister John Doe might not notice the difference between 24bit/96khz and 16bit/44.1 audio. what he will notice is the difference between 2 and 5.1 channels assuming, of course, has more than 2(not counting the sub) speakers. artificial surround sound schemes and the like don't hold a candle to real multichannel audio. as you can see, SACD is the superiour format. as someone stated earlier, it will become the beta vs vhs battle. it will come down to marketing and companies dumping $$$ into their format.

as Justin stated, this is one great player that for me outshines winamp. it's faster, more functional, and sound better because it supports higher accuracy audio output. if you have a soundcard such as the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 which supports 24bit out put then this mp3 player is for you. if you get the lastest beta it comes with asio support.

I actually have the v2-400 model (also a 4.1, in case you didn't know) and when i started getting the crackling i upgraded to the newer control pod and the problem went away completely. in fact, it also seemed to reduce some of the hissing that i used to get too.

those of you who are experiencing some static, hiss, crackling, etc... get the CP-1 (control pod) upgrade. after using mine for about a year, mine started to develop this problem. so i replaced the control pod and ever since thye've been awesome and flawless. the new control pod is really nice because it has a headhphone jack right on them and you can mute the speakers too. anyway, i love my klipsch! now seeing so many people have such bad experiences with their PM's, I'm wondering what the ratio between people who haven't had any problems with their PM's to people who have. someone should start a poll.

yep. Winamp is the way to go. i would also recommend foobar2k. did your mobo/snd card come with some drivers and config utilities? also, did you configure your speaker setup (if you're running win2k or xp)? control panel -> sound and audio devices -> click on the advanced button. at the bottom, you can select the type of speaker system you've got.

my computer, control panel, sounds and audio devices... click on the advanced button. at the bottom, make sure you have selected the type of speaker setup you have. if that does not work, you might wish to find additional configuration utilities for that sound card that's built into your motherboard. either get them from the mobo mfg or see if realtek has their own website. also, don't forget to take a close peak at your motherboard and identify what realtec chip you've got exactly.

if music is more important then choose the cards in this order (best one on top): m-audio revolution: $100 retail turtle beach santa cruz: $80 (support for it is soon to end) hercules fortissimo III (solid drivers) $50 audigy 2 $130 ($200 for the platinum) audigy 1 (does NOT do 24bit/96khz playback) $100 for games simply reverse the list but with the audigy 2 first. if you want a very well balanced card at a very good price then go for the hercules fortissimo III. *note: all prices are retail.