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You guys are great. I kinda sorta follow that answer, part of it, though I don't know what a ARM thingie does.

Sorry about that.

Here's a more layman's explanation. More words, but I hope it's better...

When you use Windows Media Player to rip CDs, by default it makes WMA files, which stands for "Windows Media Audio". This is a proprietary Microsoft-only digital music format. It's not "open" like MP3 is.

In order for the Empeg Car, Rio Car, and Rio Receiver products to play WMA files, they needed to enter a license agreement with Microsoft. Under this agreement, they don't get the source code for the WMA player software, they only get something called a "binary", which is shortand for "runtime binary executable", in other words, it's the compiled program code without the source instructions that would let the Rio guys modify it and fix bugs. In more other words, they're stuck with whatever Microsoft sent them.

This is all because Microsoft is very paranoid and protective over its proprietary music format, in much the same way Apple is protective over their proprietary (and incompatible) music format.

Anyway. The deal is that the Rio products use a special kind of CPU that's different than desktop PCs. They use a CPU called an ARM processor. That means the binary file is specially built just to run on the ARM processor (as opposed to, say, an Intel x86 processor like your Windows PC).

Well, being a Microsoft product, that binary file has a bug. The bug is: If you use Windows Media Player to rip your CDs at the highest quality setting, it will pop and click when played back on the Rio Car/Empeg Car player.

I'm assuming that the Rio Receiver, being a descendant of the Empeg Car, has the same bug. I'm not certain about that and I'd need someone from Cambridge to confirm or deny this.

Anyhow, if that's the case, there's no fix for the bug on the Rio Receiver. There are third-party player programs for the Receiver but they require a bit of techy knowledge to set up, and your post just indicated that you're not the techy type.

So the only solution for you is to re-rip your CDs either as MP3s or as lower-quality WMAs. Try re-ripping just one CD at the lower quality setting (160) and see if it fixes the problem with your Rio Receiver.

If you decide you want to try MP3 instead of WMA, start here.