CompuServe Messages

I have a problem with my quality of mpc audio. I have the following configurations: DTK 486-50, 16mb ram, 200mb ide drive, pro audio spectrum 16 sound board, nec cdr-74 external 150/300kb/sec cd-rom drive, windows 3.1 clone 386sx-33, 200mb ide drive, standard sound blaster board, chinon 150kb/sec cd-rom drive off adaptec controller (using corel's newest drivers) My problem exists with both of the above configurations (I have verified that I have the latest drivers for all components), I have set buffers of the mscdex driver to all possible settings, and the buffers in the config.sys file to all possible settings. The software that I am using are any of the following: The Animals! (software tools\works) white horse child aesops fables all of these software titles (running under windows), do not produce the quality of sound that I feel should be there. The speech quality seems to be jerky at times, with slight skips and hesitations that detracts from the quality of the playing. Both my cd configurations produce the same results. normal cd audio and any speech programs (dos based) work fine. There are absolutely NO conflicts with any other boards. I have stripped both pc's to the bone with only the boards and I have tried nearly every possible dma, irq and other settings for each cd-rom controller board. Would tweaking windows be necessary? should I buy dos based mpc programs instead of windows programs? is there any windows tweaks that would help? Am I too picky in wanting normal speech quality from these products? why do normal speech programs that come with the sound boards work better than the supposedly mpc-quality programs?