Sound card problems with SuSE Linux 9.3 Professional

Hello all, I'm running with an AMD-64 system and a VIA integrated sound card. I've configured the card with alsaconf and it does work, but I'm finding the sound very disappointing. MP3's that played with good sound quality on my old system now sound distorted and "scratchy", as if I'm playing it too loud on an inferior quality speaker system. This works even if I'm using the same headphones I used on my old RH 9 system. Is there anything I can do to tweak the quality of the sound playback? I'm using SuSE Professional Linux 9.3 (the 32 bit version, even though I have a 64 bit CPU). Thanks, Braun Brelin