Scratchy sound in iTunes! (No problems in Quicktime) - frustrating!

Hello everybody,
When playing audio in iTunes 10 the sound is scratchy. If a song starts out very quietly, eg. with only an acoustic guitar, there is a very noticeable scratchy sound almost every time a note is played. This is extremely frustrating when listening to any kind of music.
I'm on a brand new MacBook Pro, everything is up to date. I also had these sound scratch issues with my old MacBook, so I was hoping they'd be gone on my brand new MacBook... Guess not.
Anyway, I tried EVERYTHING to locate the problem. Here's what I discovered yesterday:
-I imported a brand new CD into iTunes
-Then, when I played the imported files in iTunes, the scratchy sound was there. Frustrating.
Here's what I don't understand:
When playing back the very same files using QuickTime, or even using Quick Look in the Finder, there's NO scratchy sound. The output level is a bit lower, that's all - but no scratchy sounds whatsoever. The files sound perfect and awesome in QuickTime and Quick Look.
So, what should I do now?
Using QuickTime to play all my music seems pretty rediculous, to say the least. The whole point of iTunes is to organize and play your music. So this bothers me quite a bit.
It seems to me that this is an iTunes issue.
Hope to hear from some of you.
Best,
balloonhorsens

Hi guys,
Just stumbled across this post on Google and I just want to say that I am experiencing the same problem and I have the equalizer turned off! I am running my iMac with a USB sound card to my amp and into B&W floorstanding speakers which all work VERY well.
Similar to the guy above my songs are playing very well with QuickTime - not a problem at all, but with iTunes 10 something isn't quite right. Basically when a song gets slightly bassier it tends to sound scratchy - e.g. A hard strum of a guitar. I know this isn't right and I am certain it is an issue with iTunes - the equalizer is turned off but sound check is on (with sound check off it sounds worse).
What I struggle to understand is that all of my songs have been sync'd to my iPhone 4 and those songs which sounded scratchy on iTunes on my iMac sound fine on he phone - even when I go out of the headphone jack of my phone straight to my amp!!
Please, please can somebody resolve this issue - I love high quality sound and if the iMac insists that I play and organize a bulk of my music with iTunes then it needs to sound right because at he moment the likes of John Mayer are sounding rough!
One of the main songs we could use as an example would be a song by Mumford and Sons called "After the Storm".
Thank you in advance to anybody with any advice.
Luke

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