I didn't realize this thread had developed this much since I last visited the forum. Sounds like you've nailed the problem on the head. Just to be sure, would this parameter switch affect MP3 decoding that is originally stereo? I would assume the answer is NO, since your explanation suggests that the problem arose only due to stereo decoding forced on a mono source clip. I just want to be sure before I add this parameter, as I haven't figured out a way to delete manually added parameters in the about:config panel.Frank Lion wrote:The 'player' is internal and the problem is caused by it trying to force stereo decoding on a mono source. Luckily, the solution is a simple one -
Put about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. Right click any entry in the about:config window and select New > Boolean and put this as the entry - media.forcestereo.enabled and make sure that it is selected as false. This only needs doing once.
Refresh your audio page and your problem will be gone...as if by magic.
<Minutes later>
Applying this fix does rectify the problem with the CBC MP3 clip. Unfortunately, other scenarios I encountered with the same problem wasn't eliminated, to my disappointment. One common problem is playing what is presumably mono MP3 clips on Amazon music pages, such as on CD album product listings. In this case, regardless of the boolean setting of this new parameter, the same type of extreme distortion still occurs under Win-XP with SM 2.46. Take the track samples at this URL below for instance. The distortion is extreme and renders the audio completely unuseable:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002ZDWIU/