Save As PDF /A Poor Quality

Hi
I am trying to save a PDF file as a PDF /A 1b
When I choose PDF /A 1b and click Save, the file is created but the resolution is incredibly poor. Text is fuzzy and when I zoom into images they are pixelated.
If I hit the Settings button in the Save As dialog and change the Image resolution to 300 PPI, the resulting PDF is fine but it is not a PDF /A and a dialog box appears suggesting that Preflight should be used with the PDF /A profile to fix any problems
I tried using the preflight feature and choose the PDF /A profile but again, the quality was incredibly poor. I edited the profile but could not see where exactly to raise the resolution so I tried changing the Images section from Inactive to Info and changed the values to 300 PPI. I saved the profile, but the Preflight utility reported an error 'unable to save/create file' when I tried to run and fix the process.
Can anyone help me produce a PDF /A that is of a decent resolution so that images can be zoomed into without losing clarity and where the text is not fuzzy/hazy please?
Many thanks.

Thanks to both of you for your replies.
Here's what we do:
We create PDF versions of MS-Word, MS-Excel, CAD, MS-Access, MapInfo documents. We use CutePDF Pro to merge those PDF's into a single document. Later, we may use Adobe Acrobat to create a smaller file via the virtual Adobe PDF printer which is suitable for transmitting via email. When we create a smaller sized file we do not see a drop in quality. The view options are set so that 'what you see is what you get'.
The original document looks fine and we can zoom in and see small detail in the images and the text stays sharp - same with the smaller file size versions.
We create a PDF /A for archiving because we have to deposit these files with professional archiving services. The people who run this service require PDF /A PDF's which are searchable - this means that text has to be retained. One of things I noticed when watching the output during the PDF /A creation process was that many pages were being converted into images which is of no use to us as the ability to search will not be available.
Regarding the transparency question I have no idea. I will research this and find out how to run the transparency flattener. Hopefully, that will resolve this.
Thanks again for your help!

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Message was edited by: shell_l_d

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