JIMV
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Media Monkey??
struts
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Hey JIMV,

No experience with MediaMonkey unfortunately but I don't quite follow your logic here. WAV is an open file format, not proprietary to MM so your WAVs should just sit in folders on your hard drive like any other files. If they disappeared after a registry/trash clean why do you suspect MM is the culprit rather than the CClean utility?

From personal experience I can recommend dBpoweramp, which does what you want and does it well and pretty easily. I use it for all ripping (from CD-to-computer is called 'ripping', 'burning' is the opposite, i.e creating a CD from audio files) duties ever since I swore off iTunes about a year ago. There is a free version and if you like it you can pay $36 to get the 'Reference' version which has all kinds of nice little finesses, like using both cores of a dual-core CPU.

As well as the error concealment of the drive itself (it allows the setting of individual drive offsets which not many programs support) it uses AccurateRip which compares the CRCs of your rip to others of the same CD to provide statistical confidence you have a bit-perfect rip.

All-in-all a nice program which supports just about every file format going.

JIMV
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Quote:
Hey JIMV,

No experience with MediaMonkey unfortunately but I don't quite follow your logic here. WAV is an open file format, not proprietary to MM so your WAVs should just sit in folders on your hard drive like any other files. If they disappeared after a registry/trash clean why do you suspect MM is the culprit rather than the CClean utility?

From personal experience I can recommend dBpoweramp, which does what you want and does it well and pretty easily. I use it for all ripping (from CD-to-computer is called 'ripping', 'burning' is the opposite, i.e creating a CD from audio files) duties ever since I swore off iTunes about a year ago. There is a free version and if you like it you can pay $36 to get the 'Reference' version which has all kinds of nice little finesses, like using both cores of a dual-core CPU.

As well as the error concealment of the drive itself (it allows the setting of individual drive offsets which not many programs support) it uses AccurateRip which compares the CRCs of your rip to others of the same CD to provide statistical confidence you have a bit-perfect rip.

All-in-all a nice program which supports just about every file format going.

I claim absolute ignorance of playing music from a computer. In my experience it has always been tinny MP3 sound through crappy desktop speakers.

That said, the audio press is pushing this new front end almost as the second coming and has been hearkening the near death of CD's for a long while so I thought I would dip my toe into the water and try something that is supposed to be simple...rip some of my CD's in a lossless format to my PC and then to an iPOD.

I looked around for a reliable software designed to do this. Several sites lead me to Media Monkey...

Media Monkey seems to be a nice program that does what I want BUT, I keep having normal computer program problems with this software...I do not doubt that CCleaner might have been a cause of my Library disappearing. MY problem is that this software is not supposed to remove permanent files and a registry clean up should not effect either files nor Media Monkey, but is does.

So, now I know not to use that program...OK, next we get the update problem. If I use Media Monkey as originally loaded, I can rip CD's...if I let it update, this capability goes away. I have reported my problems to their tech support with no results.

Bottom line, the program is problematic and tech support assumes a level of PC skill I do not have. I have had to remove and reload this program 3 times so far to get it to work and I live in fear of other incompatibility issues.

If this is the future of audio, I will live in the past.

Thanks for the software recommendation...I have not given up n what I own but am close.

struts
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JIMV,

I don't want to get into trying to diagnose your problem because I am not familiar with either MediaMonkey or CClean, however there is one slightly far-fetched but possible explanation I can think of that you should be able to isolate/fix pretty easily. There isn't much downside, at worst you will only waste a bit of time and your system will get a bit of a spring clean.

I am wondering if some interaction between MM and CC is causing your problem. It is just possible that MM somehow got screwed up (for instance, maybe the update script was buggy) and as a result CClean ended up inadvertantly removing some registry keys it thought were orphaned but were actually still in use. It is furthermore faintly possible (albeit unlikely) that this resulted in your OS no longer being able to 'see' WAV files.

Try the following (should be no risk of any data deletion here):

  1. Download and install Revo Uninstaller (this is a very useful utility to have anyway and it's free).
  2. Run it and remove MM using the "Advanced" setting to ensure a completely clean uninstall.
  3. Check that WAV files are associated with a program by going into Control Panel/Default Programs/Associate a File or Protocol with a Program and looking at .WAV. If it is not associated with anything use 'Change Program...' to associate it with something, e.g. Windows Media Player.
  4. Reboot
  5. Reinstall MM cleanly using, if possible, the latest version downloaded directly from the MM website.

This might, just might, solve your problem. Fingers crossed.

Good luck!

jazzfan
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I wholeheartedly second Struts' recommendation of dbPowerAmp. It is by far (and by a very, very margin) the best program currently available for ripping CDs into just about any format. I only say "any" since I'm not to sure about the support the program has for ripping or converting into Apple Lossless, which is the file format you should be using if are planning to transfer the audio files onto your iPod. Apple Lossless, as opposed to wav, takes up less space since the files are about 40% to 50% smaller than wav files and the files can be tagged which will allow iTunes and the iPod to better organize your music library.

struts
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dBpoweramp does indeed support ripping to ALAC, its ALAC encoder is based on David Hammerton's reverse engineering of the codec dating back to 2005* and his open-source decoder (see here for details). Interestingly Illustrate, the company behind dBpoweramp, sponsored Hammerton's work implying a higher-than-normal degree of access and influence.

When I tested it a year-or-two ago I found several bugs in dBpoweramp's implementation of the ALAC encoder/decoder related to handling of hi rez files (reported them on this forum iirc) but I notice that David released a new version, 0.2.0, only three months ago (the first in three years) that presumably fixes these.

I am just speculating here but it wouldn't surprise me if this was at the request of Illustrate as I believe Hammerton had kinda lost interest and moved onto other projects, it might even have been what attracted the sponsorship as I don't recall seeing that mentioned before. Although hi rez is obviously not relevant as far as ripping CDs is concerned Hammerton also mentions "various clean ups and bug fixes" which may be. Don't know if the current dBp ALAC encoder/decoder is based on the 0.2.0 codebase but if not I am sure an upgrade is in the works.

* Afaik all non-Apple implementations of ALAC are based on Hammerton's code. Will be fascinated if anybody knows of any exceptions.

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ALAC is just one of the many reasons why I can't stand Apple and Apple fan boys. And for the record, Windows Media Lossless is similarly a reason to not like Windows. Both of these companies knew full well that a perfectly fine lossless codec (FLAC) existed before they developed and introduced their own proprietary codecs and the introduction of these codecs can only be viewed as a blatant attempt for these companies to impose control where control was not needed or required.

If one does not understand just how much potential harm these proprietary measures can and do cause then I suggest that one use the internet to do some research on this topic since it will a very eye opening experience.

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foobar does all this too, and now supports accurate rip...and ipod, and flac...and well, everything.

and is free.

everyone "in the know" uses foobar. those that arent "in the know" don't.

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Quote:
foobar does all this too, and now supports accurate rip...and ipod, and flac...and well, everything.

and is free.

everyone "in the know" uses foobar. those that arent "in the know" don't.

Perhaps it would be more honest if you said "programmers 'in the know'" rather than "everyone 'in the know" uses foobar since getting foobar to do just about anything requires more programming knowledge than the average computer will ever have. While dbPowerAmp is not free, configuring it is vastly easier than configuring foobar and well worth the $36 registration cost.

JIMV
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On the media monkey front, After reloading the program and reloading all the CD's, it seems to be working...I do, however have one problem, when listening to the music ripped using Sennhauser 550, I get a sort of pumping rush under the music...I have not heard this before. Is it the program, the PC, or the headphones???

struts
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ncdrawl,

Actually the ripper in dBpoweramp is considerably more sophisticated than the one in foobar (see here for a pretty full explanation). AccurateRip can tell you with a higher degree of confidence whether or not you have an accurate rip, however if you don't it doesn't help you get one. That's where things like C2 error pointers come in handy.

I am a fan of foobar too. However I only use it for replaying files and always use dBpoweramp for ripping.

struts
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JIMV,

No idea what the pumping rush might be, however aren't you able to eliminate some of the possible culprits by substitution? Is it unique to music you have ripped from CD or do you hear it when you replay other music (e.g. the sample files in 'My Music') on the same PC?

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Quote:

Quote:
foobar does all this too, and now supports accurate rip...and ipod, and flac...and well, everything.

and is free.

everyone "in the know" uses foobar. those that arent "in the know" don't.

Perhaps it would be more honest if you said "programmers 'in the know'" rather than "everyone 'in the know" uses foobar since getting foobar to do just about anything requires more programming knowledge than the average computer will ever have. While dbPowerAmp is not free, configuring it is vastly easier than configuring foobar and well worth the $36 registration cost.

im not a programmer. i am a tobacco farmer from the deep south. i live on a 400 acre farm in the middle of nowhere.

foobar is very , very easy. provided you can read, of course...which for some folks ive met..bit o a stretch

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Quote:
JIMV,

No idea what the pumping rush might be, however aren't you able to eliminate some of the possible culprits by substitution? Is it unique to music you have ripped from CD or do you hear it when you replay other music (e.g. the sample files in 'My Music') on the same PC?

All I have in my music files outside of the Media Monkey files is a single MP3 file that sounds OK...The effect is sort of a false reverb. I get it through the cheap logitech speakers and through the headphones and I have no idea why.

I would try FLAC but I do not think the iPOD will accept it.

struts
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Do you hear it when you replay the same WAV on the iPod?

JIMV
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iPOD is a Christmas gift...Don't have it yet.

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[
FLAC but I do not think the iPOD will accept it.

it will with RockBox.

http://www.rockbox.org/

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Quote:
On the media monkey front, After reloading the program and reloading all the CD's, it seems to be working...I do, however have one problem, when listening to the music ripped using Sennhauser 550, I get a sort of pumping rush under the music...I have not heard this before. Is it the program, the PC, or the headphones???

do you have some sort of volume maximizing/leveling feature on? compression/loudness tools sound exactly as you describe. (particularly the "pumping"...compression is notorious for this)

JIMV
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The thing does have a track leveling feature...I will turn it off and try to record a CD again to see if the problem goes away. Thanks for the suggestion.

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Dude, could you at least try to learn the terminology? You have been corrected once before. It's called ripping a CD.

A little research will educate one on the difference between burning or recording a CD!

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Quote:
Dude, could you at least try to learn the terminology? You have been corrected once before. It's called ripping a CD.

A little research will educate one on the difference between burning or recording a CD!

Sorry to have offended...I have ripped a CD again without track leveling with the same result, a low rumble/reverb/rushing noise under the music...and again I have no idea why.

This is supposed to be about the music yet I find myself in yet another gadget battle and when I do listen to what I have ripped, I get noise that is not in the CD...

RGibran
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Many folks have patiently tried to assist you in numerous ways. Perhaps that will continue.

One recommendation I don

JIMV
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So what am I doing wrong? PC based systems are supposed to be the wave of the future yet I get noise and incompatibility...typical computer problems...

struts
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JIMV,

I'm afraid I can see no other way forward here than good old-fashioned troubleshooting. Eliminate variables (of which, in a computer-based audio system, there are many) until you have isolated the problem.

I would suggest first trying to work out if the distortion is being encoded into the file when you rip or is being added on replay. Try downloading the free version of dBpoweramp and ripping with that (set "ultra-secure mode" in 'Options'). If that file sounds the same then try replaying the files ripped with both programs with foobar2000 (again, free). Is the result the same? Does the distortion go away?

I personally believe computer audio is the 'wave of the future', however for folks who think the sort of steps I outline above sound like heavy going I would suggest a solution towards the 'consumer electronics' end of the spectrum, such as the Olive music servers.

JIMV
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Thanks, I'll give it a try...

struts
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Remember to use either the ASIO or preferably, since you are using Vista, WASAPI interfaces to connect to your soundcard when playing back (you configure this in MM & Foobar respectively). If you use the default Direct Sound (DS) interface your music could be mixed with the audio output of other programs (including the operating system) and possibly also sample rate-converted in the process.

JIMV
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That could be Greek for all it means to me. I have a Sony Vista laptop. I have no idea what the options you list are much less how to do them...

struts
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In Foobar you set it under Preferences/Playback/Output/Output Device. There should be something similar in MM.

JIMV
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A final update..I moved the mess from my Sony Vista laptop to my old XP desktop...the rumble and rushing went away and all sounds good when sent to the iPOD...

So, that seems to make the problem either Vista/Media interface problems OR a laptop problem.

Works fine on the old desktop.

struts
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Hmmmm, very strange. Delighted to hear it's working though!

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Quote:
A final update..I moved the mess from my Sony Vista laptop to my old XP desktop...the rumble and rushing went away and all sounds good when sent to the iPOD...

So, that seems to make the problem either Vista/Media interface problems OR a laptop problem.

Works fine on the old desktop.

Windows Vista causing a problem. Gee what a surprise!

Luckily Windows Vista will soon be laid to rest alongside some of the other great Windows' OSs like Windows 2.0 and Windows ME.

struts
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Windows Vista causing a problem. Gee what a surprise!


With respect, I disagree, jazzfan.

Audio was the one thing I found Windows Vista to actually be good at. Whooda thunk it?

I would argue it is far simpler to get a bit-perfect stream out of Vista (just use WASAPI) than WINXP. And even if you use non-exclusive mode (i.e. DirectSound) in Vista the volume control is properly dithered and remarkably transparent.

Also, unlike certain other (ahem) contemporary consumer OSes, Vista senses the sample rate of the programme automatically and doesn't need to be manually reset.

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Quote:

Quote:
Windows Vista causing a problem. Gee what a surprise!


With respect, I disagree, jazzfan.

Audio was the one thing I found Windows Vista to actually be good at. Whooda thunk it?

I would argue it is far simpler to get a bit-perfect stream out of Vista (just use WASAPI) than WINXP. And even if you use non-exclusive mode (i.e. DirectSound) in Vista the volume control is properly dithered and remarkably transparent.

Also, unlike certain other (ahem) contemporary consumer OSes, Vista senses the sample rate of the programme automatically and doesn't need to be manually reset.

And with equal respect Struts, I ask a simple question:

Why is the audiophile world so hung up on using the computer itself, usually connected via a USB cable to one's audio rig, with all of the noise, both electrical and audible, and the countless other issues, e.g. jitter, sample rates, lack of bit-perfect streams, etc. when various simple and modestly priced alternates exist?

Of course I'm speaking about music and media streaming devices such as the LogiTech Squeezebox family of products or even the Sooloos system. Streaming solves most of the issues raised by using a direct connection of one's computer without introducing that many new issues. Sure streaming adds new issues to the equation but these issues are not audio or sound quality related and therefore should not be a deterrent to those in search of the highest quality sound reproduction from a computer based audio system.

I suggest that you look into the soon to be released Squeezebox Touch Touch info which will even handle native 24 bit/96kHz streaming and should, when used with a good quality external DAC, provide true audiophile quality sound for a very modest price.

struts
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Ah, I suspect we were at cross-purposes. I thought your point was that Vista was an inferior audio environment to other PC OSes such as XP or MacOS (not true IMHO, although it is probably inferior in just about every other respect), whereas I think your real point was that PC-audio is inferior for high-end applications to streaming.

I am slightly ambivalent on that one. As I think you know I was an early adopter of streaming with the Sonos system, and still use a ZP90 to feed the bigrig, so I think I am reasonably well aware of the advantages. However hi res material sounds pretty darn good through the Sennie Orpheus driven by a Lynx L22 soundcard, and a software-based player has its advantages too. For instance I can't imagine being able to browse my library on a remote control/iPhone/tablet anything like as fast as I can on my PC (especially given what I have read about the performance of Squeezecenter on the ReadyNAS NV+!) and I love the ability to immediately dive in and fix tagging errors I find while browsing.

That said, thanks very much for the heads-up on the Squeezebox Touch. As you know I have been wanting to play hi res material on the bigrig for ages now but have for one reason and another never pulled the trigger on a TP. With 802.11n support and a 24/96-capable S/PDIF-out the Touch looks like just the ticket. And at a reasonable price too! Now if only it had a WCLCK IN...

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Quote:
Ah, I suspect we were at cross-purposes. I thought your point was that Vista was an inferior audio environment to other PC OSes such as XP or MacOS (not true IMHO, although it is probably inferior in just about every other respect), whereas I think your real point was that PC-audio is inferior for high-end applications to streaming.

I am slightly ambivalent on that one. As I think you know I was an early adopter of streaming with the Sonos system, and still use a ZP90 to feed the bigrig, so I think I am reasonably well aware of the advantages. However hi res material sounds pretty darn good through the Sennie Orpheus driven by a Lynx L22 soundcard, and a software-based player has its advantages too. For instance I can't imagine being able to browse my library on a remote control/iPhone/tablet anything like as fast as I can on my PC (especially given what I have read about the performance of Squeezecenter on the ReadyNAS NV+!) and I love the ability to immediately dive in and fix tagging errors I find while browsing.

That said, thanks very much for the heads-up on the Squeezebox Touch. As you know I have been wanting to play hi res material on the bigrig for ages now but have for one reason and another never pulled the trigger on a TP. With 802.11n support and a 24/96-capable S/PDIF-out the Touch looks like just the ticket. And at a reasonable price too! Now if only it had a WCLCK IN...

Struts,

As usual your points are all well taken but only go towards proving my prior assertion that from a strictly audio playback standpoint streaming is superior to having one's computer directly connected to one's audio system.

Nonetheless the shortcoming of many streaming systems cannot and should not be overlooked. The Squeezebox system with it's open source server allows for the development many very useful plugins, many of which go a long way in improving the usefulness of the basic system. I use a plugin called "Moose", which is a standalone computer based control interface that enables much faster and more expanded browsing of one's music library. While far from perfect, it is a step in the right direction.

I believe that the Sooloos system, which is basically a computer fully dedicated to music library and music server duties, is the model that will likely be the future of streaming music systems, particularly as processing and storage costs continue to drop. Although I have never seen, much less used, the Sooloos system, from what I've read about the product Sooloos appears to have gotten the music library management and browsing functionality right. Now if the Sooloos front end could somehow be used to control the Linn DS series of music streaming devices, I think the high end would have it's first really worthwhile music streaming system.

struts
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jazzfan,

I think (I maybe be wrong) you are selectively linking cause and effect.

If your assertion (and if it could be proved it wouldn't be an assertion, right?) is that a piece of single-purpose consumer electronics with hardware and software optimized for replaying music is better able to form the basis of a more user-friendly and better-sounding source component than a general-purpose PC then I would agree. However I think this has to do with suitability-for-purpose in a whole variety of ways, and is not simply a case of streaming versus direct connection.

A streaming architecture has two big advantages as I see it:

  1. Ability to separate storage from replay, i.e. site the noisy NAS outside the listening room
  2. Ability to support distributed, i.e. multi-room systems.

However sound quality is not one of them.

Have you seen this initiative? It's a sort of roll-your-own Olive, and in my view a very credible approach to developing a high quality digital source, with no streaming involved, for under $1000.

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Quote:
jazzfan,

I think (I maybe be wrong) you are selectively linking cause and effect.

If your assertion (and if it could be proved it wouldn't be an assertion, right?) is that a piece of single-purpose consumer electronics with hardware and software optimized for replaying music is better able to form the basis of a more user-friendly and better-sounding source component than a general-purpose PC then I would agree. However I think this has to do with suitability-for-purpose in a whole variety of ways, and is not simply a case of streaming versus direct connection.

A streaming architecture has two big advantages as I see it:

  1. Ability to separate storage from replay, i.e. site the noisy NAS outside the listening room
  2. Ability to support distributed, i.e. multi-room systems.

However sound quality is not one of them.

Have you seen this initiative? It's a sort of roll-your-own Olive, and in my view a very credible approach to developing a high quality digital source, with no streaming involved, for under $1000.

Struts,

Without having this discussion fall into unproductive exchanges perhaps we should clear the air, so to speak, by outlining a basic assumptions:

First, if a computer based music playback system, be it streamed or direct connection, is going to use iTunes as the music playing software then all bets are off since this software has demonstrated time and again it's lack of suitability as a high end music player. Why just the hoops you jump through to play back files with different resolutions is enough to disqualify it from further mention. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do use iTunes.

Second, in a system using a direct connection the connection should be anything other than USB since, like iTunes a USB connection has been shown to be less than optimal for the jitter free transmission of data. And as with iTunes, the vast majority of users will use USB as the form of direct connection.

On based on these two assumptions alone the streaming model becomes the clear choice for high end audio playback.

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jf,

Just because we don't agree doesn't in my view render the discussion unproductive. I do agree with much of your rationale, just not with your conclusion.

Two things that iTunes and USB have in common are ubiquity and convenience. The sad thing is that 'convenient but compromised quality-wise' seems to be regarded as a perfectly acceptable trade-off by the vast majority of people. In some cases the additional steps necessary to achieve significantly better quality are not particularly burdensome so one could conclude that above some very basic level most people only care about convenience and not about sound quality. There seems to be a depressingly large body of evidence pointing in this direction.

One could also argue that the root of iTunes's evil is on the ripping- rather than the replay side. By defaulting to 128kbps* when ripping (and we all know how many people actually change defaults) it leaves people with mutilated source material from the get-go.

However I don't think streaming represents the only convenient alternative as evidenced, for instance, by the aforementioned Olive products. I do agree that it has certain advantages (above), but also disadvantages, particularly when streaming over wifi on unlicensed spectrum that can get very cluttered, not to mention polluted.

I am a fan of streaming and a fan of the Slim Devices design approach and their products. I think it is amazing (and sad at the same time) that over three years after its release the Transporter still doesn't seem to have a convincing competitor, let alone a superior one. The only point of yours I take issue with is that streaming is the only or even the default alternative to 'PC anarchy'.

* Actually a quick check of the latest version reveals that iTunes now defaults to a profile called "iTunes Plus" for import which is 256kbps AAC. IMO this is a much more reasonable default for ripping to a portable (space-constrained) target environment, however the 128kbps profile is called "High Quality" which I consider misleading to say the least. I would still love to see "CD quality" presented as a prominent alternative, along maybe with a health warning about the additional space requirements.

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Quote:
JIMV,

I don't want to get into trying to diagnose your problem because I am not familiar with either MediaMonkey or CClean, however there is one slightly far-fetched but possible explanation I can think of that you should be able to isolate/fix pretty easily. There isn't much downside, at worst you will only waste a bit of time and your system will get a bit of a spring clean.

I am wondering if some interaction between MM and CC is causing your problem. It is just possible that MM somehow got screwed up (for instance, maybe the update script was buggy) and as a result CClean ended up inadvertantly removing some registry keys it thought were orphaned but were actually still in use. It is furthermore faintly possible (albeit unlikely) that this resulted in your OS no longer being able to 'see' WAV files.

Try the following (should be no risk of any data deletion here):

  1. Download and install Revo Uninstaller (this is a very useful utility to have anyway and it's free).
  2. Run it and remove MM using the "Advanced" setting to ensure a completely clean uninstall.
  3. Check that WAV files are associated with a program by going into Control Panel/Default Programs/Associate a File or Protocol with a Program and looking at .WAV. If it is not associated with anything use 'Change Program...' to associate it with something, e.g. Windows Media Player.
  4. Reboot
  5. Reinstall MM cleanly using, if possible, the latest version downloaded directly from the MM website.

This might, just might, solve your problem. Fingers crossed.

Good luck!

I have googled Mediamonkey and CCcleaner, and there's obviously bugs in both programs, so I strongly suggest not using any of them. MM sometimes conflicts with iTunes/iPods and CCcleaner sometimes removes a little more than desired.

I too wish you good luck

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