iTunes Crackles
I am running iTunes 10.1.2.17 and have recently upgraded my crappy old SoundBlaster and $20 speakers to an HT Omega Claro Halo sound card and Audioengine A2's. Now that my audio equipment has upgraded, I can hear a very noticeable (and extremely irritating) crackle whenever I play anything through iTunes. Most notably in my ambient-esque music.
The sound is a crackle or sizzle in the background, much like dust on vinyl. The crackling sound is not present when playing music through Foobar2000, Windows Media Player, or Winamp.
I reverted back to my old SoundBlaster/Cheapo Speaker setup and verified that the crackling sound was present in iTunes and not in the other media players. My old system was just too crappy to notice.
There are no playback settings that I have ever been able to find in iTunes, but I have changed the settings in Quicktime. I currently have the "Windows Audio Session" radio button selected in my "Play Audio Using:" option box with no improvement. I have explored all the other options in the "Audio" tab in Quicktime Preferences as well. Nothing helps.
Any suggestions are much appreciated. I'm ready to try anything and would ditch iTunes over this issue if I didn't have to interface with a half dozen other Apple products.
x64, Windows 7, HT Omega Claro Halo