Whenever I open Sibelius, and then I playback any kind of sound file, the speed of what I am listening to is slowed down -- the only thing that isn't affected is what I am writing in Sibelius...any idea why this is?

I have a Dell -- Intel Core 2 Quad 2.5 GHz, 4 GB ram, Vista 32 bit, Creative SB X-fi sound card.

Could you be more specific with regards to what you mean by slowed down? Does every sound like it's just at a slower tempo, or does it sound like a record playing at a slower speed (meaning that both tempo and pitch are affected)?

I used to experience the latter of the two, and the problem seemed to be related to different sample rate being used by the two different programs e.g. perhaps Sibelius is running at 44KHz while the other is at 22KHz.  I never really tried to devise a way to fix it other than perhaps you could try opening the audio player, start playing it, then open Sibelius.  This is a bit of a troublesome workaround, but it worked for me when I was having that problem.

I'm sure that someone who is a little more knowledgeable than me will have a more succinct explanation.

Bryan's probably onto it.  The most common problem is when people mess with system settings, or work with a video editing program with audio at 48 khz, then CD-quality audio at 44.1.

It may well be the Sound Card. I have had issues with Sibelius/Vista and the SB X-Fi Card. My issue was that when you tried to play back a score, it would delay in starting and skip about 3 measures by the time it started playing thru the speakers. I have since moved to the M-Audio 2496 Card and that resolved the issue.

Now the only problem is that I can't shut down my system properly and the M-Audio card seems to keep the Sibelius process open. Any one have any luck resolving that issue?

Good Luck and let us know how you get this resolved.

Thanks,
ChazG