Why is iTunes quality so crappy?

March 23, 2009 1:01 PM

Why does iTunes have such poor audio quality?

I'm running iTunes on a Core2Duo laptop using XP. If I burn or even play a CD using iTunes, the audio quality is quite poor (it sounds a little like a record skipping). I seem to have the same problem on an old refurbished IBM P4 tower I'm using, too.

However, if I use Windows Media Player (and try to play from or burn a CD), there is no problem.

Any ideas?

posted by KokuRyu to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Are you using iTunes 7? There was a problem with a Windows setting. See here for the fix.
posted by jquinby at 1:07 PM on March 23, 2009

Response by poster: It worked! Thank you!
posted by KokuRyu at 1:14 PM on March 23, 2009

Also, iTunes 8 is out.
posted by tdreyer at 1:19 PM on March 23, 2009

I have the safe problem, but I've tried the fix AND it also happens with Itunes 8 as well as other media players. The only player that doesn't skip for me is winamp.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 1:48 PM on March 23, 2009

That is, the SAME problem...
posted by Midnight Rambler at 1:49 PM on March 23, 2009

I had this problem with iTunes but fiddling with my audio card's settings fixed it. It doesn't seem to have been any particular setting that did the trick; just changing the settings synchronized the driver with the actual hardware, or something, and it started working.
posted by kindall at 3:06 PM on March 23, 2009