So whats the big secret??/DirectSound/mp3/enum soundcards

I know DirectSound does not directly support the playing of mp3 files... I have been looking for weeks now for a "workaround" for this with no success whatsoever, so I`d be grateful for any help you may care to offer..

I guess what i require is to be able to call, in vb code,the mp layer 3 codec into action, then load the resulting pcm into a directsound buffer. (Just one possible way of making all the features of directsound available for an mp3 file).

The reason I`m so keen to use directsound is that i have three mp3 players in my application, and i need to assign each mediaplayer output to each of my soundcards (I have three). Its easy to enumerate soundcards in directsound, and thus assign each player its own soundcard. But if you know how to assign to soundcards directly from mediaplayer ocx (or directshow, which does support mp3 playback directly), then perhaps I can forget about directsound altogether.

I`d be pleased to hear what you know about this as many similar questions in these forums both by myself and other posters tend to go unanswered.