Greetings all,

I'm currently using Libranet 2.7. I have a SoundBlaster Live! card (detected as emu10k1). When I play mp3s in xmms, when the song gets instrumentally intense, (for example, many instruments playing simultaneously, usually at a chorus), the sound is no longer clear, it is a combination of scratchy and muddy. This does not happen at all in Windows XP.

Previously, I have installed and used Knoppix, Debian woody and Redhat 9. The only distribution out of these that had the same sound clarity as in Windows XP was Redhat 9. Knoppix and Debian had the same sound issues. I abandoned Redhat 9 because I thought it was too slow. I really like Libranet 2.7 so far, and I don't want to switch back to Redhat 9 just for the sound clarity.

Options:

Anyone know what is going on and how to fix it? <-- prefer this option

Or, should I install my old Santa Cruz Turtle Beach card? (which has virtually same quality) <-- kind of like running away from the problem

Switch back to Redhat 9 <-- don't prefer this option

I'm a Linux newbie, and I prefer to learn how to use it with music playing at the same time, but the poor quality coming out is distracting me...
Please help.

Type /sbin/lsmod. If its not there type whereis lsmod. lsmod will list all the modules (drivers) you have running. If you see emu10k1 then you are using the OSS modules. If its snd-emu10k1 then you are using ALSA. OSS is not good. I suggest using ALSA because it has much better sound quality and more features.

Compile ALSA packages. Then edit your modules.conf file.

MP3 are not good at all. If the bite rate is not high enough, you will have less upper bandwidth and distorted upper frequencies. I suggest using OGG files. IMO, they are much better for several kinds of music and sounds.

The problem could be the MP3 decoder. You can try find an updated version and see (hear) if that fixes it.

Since I have Libranet 2.7, which is based on Debian, should something like

apt-get install alsa-drivers
aot-get install alsa-config

etc., fix the problem?