OK, I updated to the newest version of iTunes. Then I updated my iPhone to the newest OS that everyone seems to hate.

But since then, MP3s don't play through iTunes without sounding noisy, garbled and like its in a can. It's only MP3s...videos, podcasts, CDs, and everything else plays like normal so it's not my speakers. But MP3s, existing and newly ripped, all play nothing but noise.

I've checked Preferences, rebooted, and looked in all the iTunes nooks and crannys looking for something that may have been switched on or off. I got nothing.

Any ideas?

Do the mp3's sound fine on a different system/computer?

It sounds like maybe a codec that deciphers/translates the mp3 information into music may have gotten corrupted. I'm not sure what to do about that, maybe uninstall iTunes and try reinstalling it?

Try those same mp3s using a different player on the same computer and see if they sound any different.

Windows Media Player and my iPod play the MP3s fine...it probably is a codec in the iTunes 10.5 update...

I had a problem with my apps when I updated to the newest version of itunes recently.After resynching to the computer though it took care of it.

After some digging, it looks as if the newest iTunes (10.5) clashes with Windows XP and certain processors. The Apple forums have been lighting up about it for a couple weeks now, but Apple has yet to acknowledge the problem or offer a solution.

A lot of the people on the Apple forums rolled back to 10.4.1, but my phone now has iOS5 and I don't think it would be compatible.

I never update my itunes

I have iTunes 10.5.0.142 installed and I have XP. I haven't had any issues at all. Did you try what Rex suggested, the uninstall/reinstall?

Could also be an issue with Quicktime (the engine iTunes uses).

I stopped updating my itunes a few months ago. I forget what problem it was giving me but after installing and reinstalling a million times I said screw it I'm going back to the old version and everything worked fine.

It's like every couple of weeks theres a new update and theres always something wrong.

It's hard for any software company to make changes to their product and never have any issues. We do it at work, and we test new software rollouts like crazy in the lab, all kinds of scenarios, but when it goes live at our sites there are always issues. There's just no way we can ever predict the kind of crazy stuff people do on computers. Haha.

In the case of iTunes, they have to try to figure out how the billions of other programs and such people have on their PCs will interact with iTunes. Which of course is impossible. So I give any software company a lot of slack when it comes to this stuff.

That said, aside from the recent issue with artwork not updating when added, which was fixed quickly, I haven't had any issues with iTunes updates.

Uninstalled, reinstalled, same problem. The podcasts I get (via iTunes store) play fine...any CD I have ripped myself sounds like hollow, digitized noise.

What if you rip your cd as an mp4 or aac (whatever iTunes natively uses instead of mp3 by default)? Do those still sound messed up?

I tried converting an MP3 to AAC...but got same problem. I could try ripping a new track as AAC...but ALL of my other music is MP3.

Ripped as AAC plays fine...

Newly ripped as MP3 is jacked...it's the encoder.

For anyone keeping up, iTunes fixed the issue in their last update.

*sticks fingers in ears* LA LA LA Nope can't hear you! Not updating iTunes ever again... LA LA LA.. Still can't hear you....

I haven't used my iPod for music but I have a hard time with pictures (which I use it for most as well as a camera, voice recorder, and note taker). I have 4,999 pictures I want on my device but using iTunes, it will only sync 4,263 of them. It was worse on my desktop as only 2,000+ would sync. My laptop does a better job of running iTunes but it still won't sync all my pictures. I tried iTunes alternatives but none of them work for pictures. With this much trouble using pictures, I shudder to think how much of a pain in the arse using it for my music. Say what you will about the Zune (Unfortunatly, I've gone through too many of them to go back to them-I can still use my Zune HD, but I'm forced to reset it every couple of weeks), but it's software is more user friendly (probably because it's from Microsoft, maybe iPods work better if you have a Mac).

I've never had a problem with iTunes when it comes to music. Admittedly I only have a few over 3000 songs though. I did have the distorted CD problem though (with Toto-Toto IV - I was gutted) but that's sorted now.

I've been having some problems recently with getting songs to play on my iPod. It was my understanding that even if a song wasn't ripped from a CD through iTunes, you could still put the files on your iPod (mp3 format of course) and play them.

Recently, I ripped a bunch of CDs to my PS3 and imported them to a thumb drive (PC won't read CDs anymore... yet it'll still read DVDs ) then placed them into iTunes, updated their artist/album info, clicked & dragged them over to my iPod. I can click and play the files from my iPod while it is still connected to PC/iTunes but once I disconnect, the files won't play on my iPod. It'll just sit there and sometimes the timer will start going like it's playing but it's actually not. Most of the time, it'll sit for a few seconds on the song then skip over to the next available song.

The iPod has no problem playing podcasts or files I have downloaded straight to my PC (said files have NOT come from the itunes store) on this iPod so I don't know what's going on. I could've sworn this iPod has played stuff I've brought over from my PS3 before but now I'm not sure!