Distortion on recorded MP3s

[Mitch]

I recently got a new Dell Precision desktop, P4 with 2GB memory. Sound card
is a Soundmax Digital Audio integrated on the motherboard. I have Windows
Media Player 10 and I downloaded an add-on for ripping MP3s...Intervideo MP3
X-pack. All the MP3s I've created are distorted-sounding on playback. Source
CDs sound clear. I have two CD drives and they both produce the same
results. Older MP3s recorded on my previous PC are clear on playback.
Judging from the graph at the bottom of the player, the sound is overloaded.
It would seem that the CD drive's produce input levels that are too high,
but they don't sound distorted playing CDs.

I've played with all the volume controls I know of, and nothing seems to
help. Also: I tried reverting to recording Windows "wma" format and the
results are the same. So it appears to me to be a problem with input levels
from the CD drives, unless I'm overlooking something. How do I go about
fixing this? Thanks for any help.

 

[Guest]

i've never used the intervideo plug-in, but here's my guess: intervideo is
WMP 9 plug-in. for some weird reason, a lot of WMP 9 plug-ins don't work too
well in WMP 10. Besides which, there's no need for an mp3 ripper plug-in in
10; it comes with an mp3 ripper. go to tools->options->ripping music and you
can change the format and bitrate for ripping. make sure to disable/uninstall
intervideo before doing this as it might interfere.
its weird that wmas didn't work... were you ripping through intervideo or
(solely)WMP then?
i doubt its the cd input levels, but you never know. oh ya, and i know your
posts is old, so sorry if you already figured this out. anyway, i hope this
helped.