I downloaded foobar2000 on my Win 2000 machine with sounmax digital audio driver. Problem is that it messed up the vocals, very high attenuation( In fact, i can barely make out vocals at times, its sooo bad) although the accompanying music sounded much better. So, i tried playing the same mp3s on real playere, winamp etc. etc. with the same result. I can swear that the vocals sounded about 100 times better before i installed foobar. So am i going deaf(but i'm hearing music better) or my sound card is screwed?

It's impossible for Foobar to fubar the output of other programs.

I re-installed the drivers but it isn't working. I'll really appreciate if anybody can help. Thanks.

Check speaker cables or try another set of speakers ?

You are GOD. I feel stupid but what a strange coincidence that my speakers betrayed me at the worst possible time. What are the odds of this happening again.Sorry all.

what exactly happened before getting that sound?

I'm not sure, the only thing i did today was to install foobar. Yesterday they were working fine and so i mistakenly concluded that this could have something to do with software-corrupted driver or codecs. That this could be a hardware problem didn't cross my mind.