Updated the firmware for the CD-ROM. No luck.

"Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device" was turned off {via Properties (right click on the CD-ROM drive in My Computer window) -> Hardware (select the appropriate device) -> Properties -> Properties}. Tried setting it the other way and received the message "Digital Playback Enable: This drive has not been shown to support digital payback. Symptoms may include poor audio quality, cdplayer application responding oddly or not responding to the PLAY command, and/or silence when seemingly playing audio. Are you sure? Yes/No!" Selected "Yes" but also no luck!

Just to clarify, when using Analog Playback for this CD-ROM (via Tools -> Options -> Devices -> Properties in WMP) there is a 3 second echo. In other words 3 seconds after a track begins it starts again (not as loud) and keeps playing over the top of the original. With all of the other attempts there is either silence or intermittent cracking with silence in between.

Nero & foobar allow me to use the CD-ROM to playback CD audio tracks so I think I'll leave WMP alone for now. Thanks for all the advice fellas.