After upgrading a pretty new machine from 8.2-Pro to 9.1-Pro, I noticed a marked degradation in the quality of playback of my MP3 collection. I first had the problem that has been often reported regarding no volume, and I have fixed that as per http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/05/thallma_91_sndsilence.html (for example). But now the sound quality is markedly inferior; in fact I just spent some time comparing against an 8.2 machine just behind me. And even though the 8.2 machine has decent, but not nearly as good, speakers, it produces far better sound on the same MP3s. The problem is a lot of background distortion - its not always immediately obvious, but it is really there as soon as you listen. Seems to be affecting mostly the mid to lower ranges, and appears in headphones as well, so its not the speakers. In all cases, I have used the default sound installation, with no tweaking (except to fix the volume problems). The sound is one of those onboard Asustek VT8233/etc. thingees. Anyone have any ideas. (I'm now going to upgrade the 8.2 machine, and keep better before and after notes, so we'll see if that changes aything). Thanks neal -- Neal Holtz http://www.docuweb.ca/~nholtz Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6. nholtz@docuweb.ca