Pause bug
Long time ago I decided to upgrade my speakers. It was when Matrix Reloaded was released and I realized my own homemade apm + speakers are simply not enought. They can't handle the extremly low-frequency effects designed for subwoofers to "shake your world and body" combined with the music. The fight scene with many copy's of Agent Smith verzus Neo was shiny example of my speakers inequality - beside every friend visiting me was constantly asking where I bought them, because they play, well... very well :good:
So, to make some use of my SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 output I choosen a Genius SW-5.1 wooden speakers, because they sound damn good (with some modifications, better opamps, cables and stuff). Now the best AC3 decode was a AC3 filter. It sound damn good, however there also come the price. Every time I pause ANY movie using ANY player (Mplayer, Mplayer Classic, BSplay, SoubtitleWorkshop DS preview play, etc) and then quickly unpause it, it sometimes swap random channels. And believe me, hearing subwoofer efect from mid speaker and speaking of actors thru the subwoofer is not exactly exciting...
It was also (SB Live! 5.1) not capable of 24 bit output.

To fix this ughly pause bug and get 24bit, I go and bought Audigy soundcard. Later are revealed that the Audigy is not exactly 24bit at all and my ears kinda relalized it anyway. And futhermore, not only the quality of sound did not improve over SB Live! 5.1, but the pause bug become more frequent and it add a whole new trick. Most times the "channel swap" was not enought. Now it mostly push hi-volume noise into most or all channels...! Believe me, suddently hearing high volume noise from all the 6 channels will make you jump

To get true 24bit output AND get rid of the pause bug I bought later an Audigy 2 ZS card (after checking and realizing the simply Audigy 2 card witch friend has with same speakers, did not improve much of the sound), but the pause bug did not disappeared at all. That make me kinda furious and angry.

Yet about year and half back I invested again into Creative crap and bought a full-featured X-Fi Fatal1ty for enhancing my BF2 play experience and eventualy geting rid of the pause bug. That was likely the last time I bought anything from Creative. Not only I have to mod drivers to work/install on Win2k a bit, but they also suxx and the pausebug is still here.
I managed to get rid of it for some month or so, after I replace some major caps on the X-Fi, but as the other caps aging (and they are bad brand of caps also - something that is hard to believe in a $260 pricetag at the buy time product) I get the pause bug yet again.

So there you have proof, that Direct Show decoders seeking could be a problem, when using 5.1 output with 24bit AC3 filter settings and quickly do many random pause/unpause of a AC3/DTS movie.

It (the pause bug) travel with me on many different mainboards/CPUs and happen even in completelly new mobos - and even now, when I have mobo with all good caps and completely recapped PSU. I planing to get rid of it by complete X-Fi recapp + add enhanced and brutal PCI voltage filtering for the X-Fi + shielding the X-Fi.

That is nonsense at best. Audio and computers capacitors don't mix!

...Audio and computers capacitors don't mix!...

No wonder when the Jamicon for main X-Fi chip is alredy leaking!

PS. I just replaced the there output opamps from the old useless (they was used even in Audigy (1) !!!) MC4558C ( http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/...S/MC4558CD.html ) to the praised LM4562 ( http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/...NSC/LM4562.html ) opamps. It was kinda easy, however the changes are minimal. You cannot hear any difference in mp3 bellow 320kBi, that is for sure. When we talking about DTS 768kBi, well, ten there finally is some difference  But not so major.

Too radical? As intermediate step you can try replace these Jamicons with Panny FC 22uF 25V caps - and hear the difference. In fact, there is almost no difference after opamps exchange, but huge after caps exchange WITH already exchanged opamps...!

Why not use tantalum caps
http://www.hindawi.com/GetPDF.aspx?doi=10..../08827510212341
Read conclusion about noise in tantalum cap
The most important sources of fluctuation consist in regenerative microbreaks, fluctuation of polarisation and mechanical strain. The frequency dependence of noise spectral density in mHz region gives information on slow irreversible processes of tantalum pentoxide crystal-isation and oxide reduction. The self-healing process can improve sample quality due to leak-age current and noise reduction. :redface:

Or there:
Low Noise Balanced Microphone Preamp
I also recommend against the use of tantalum capacitors, and regular readers will notice that I have not suggested them for any project (although there was one suggestion that you could use them if you wanted to). The only capacitor fault I have ever had to track down with an intermittent short circuit was a tantalum bead type - it was neither fun, nor easy to find :-(

So out of a pure luck and based just on a intuition I tried the X-Fi w/o these caps and quess what - it played and playing well still! :dev: :wahaha:

Amazingly and not unsurprisingly, once the Jamicons are out of the audio loop now completely, the detail level in music increased hearably once again.

It is obvious that complete recap of the Jamicon crap caps has to be done as well, as the audiojacks has to be gold-plated for the subwoofer connection, the whole subwoofer has to be recapped and possibly modified also, so there is a notable difference.