diff --git a/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/CUE_format.cs b/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/CUE_format.cs
index 963ea8c640..0808f03197 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/CUE_format.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/CUE_format.cs
@@ -51,24 +51,33 @@ namespace BizHawk.DiscSystem
 
 					try
 					{
-						//check for the specified file
-						if (!File.Exists(blobPath))
+						//check whether we can load the wav directly
+						bool loaded = false;
+						if (File.Exists(blobPath) && Path.GetExtension(blobPath).ToUpper() == ".WAV")
+						{
+							try
+							{
+								blob.Load(blobPath);
+								loaded = true;
+							}
+							catch
+							{
+							}
+						}
+
+						//if that didnt work or wasnt possible, try loading it through ffmpeg
+						if (!loaded)
 						{
-							//if it doesn't exist, then it may be encoded.
 							FFMpeg ffmpeg = new FFMpeg();
 							if (!ffmpeg.QueryServiceAvailable())
 							{
-								throw new InvalidOperationException("No decoding service was available (make sure ffmpeg.exe is available)");
+								throw new InvalidOperationException("No decoding service was available (make sure ffmpeg.exe is available. even though this may be a wav, ffmpeg is used to load oddly formatted wave files)");
 							}
 							AudioDecoder dec = new AudioDecoder();
 							byte[] buf = dec.AcquireWaveData(blobPath);
 							blob.Load(new MemoryStream(buf));
 							WasSlowLoad = true;
 						}
-						else
-						{
-							blob.Load(blobPath);
-						}
 					}
 					catch (Exception ex)
 					{
diff --git a/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/Decoding.cs b/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/Decoding.cs
index 7a76b96cb7..bb41bdb602 100644
--- a/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/Decoding.cs
+++ b/BizHawk.Emulation/DiscSystem/Decoding.cs
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ namespace BizHawk.DiscSystem
 			string tempfile = Path.GetTempFileName();
 			try
 			{
-				string runResults = Run("-i", path, "-f", "wav", "-y", tempfile);
+				string runResults = Run("-i", path, "-f", "wav", "-ar", "44100", "-ac", "2", "-acodec", "pcm_s16le", "-y", tempfile);
 				byte[] ret = File.ReadAllBytes(tempfile);
 				if (ret.Length == 0)
 					throw new InvalidOperationException("Failure running ffmpeg for audio decode. here was its output:\r\n" + runResults);