Would this help resolve the issue???
And bring this issue to a working solution.

The 'print' on line 224 fails, however, the 'print' on line 225 does not, They are the same characters!

The characters show correctly in this post, they are from the Latin1 (8859-1) code page.

Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.28
Editor support available.

Enter h or `h h' for help, or `man perldebug' for more help.

main::(audio:8):    my $MyDEBUG = 1;
  DB<1> c 222
main::HashMPEG(audio:222):      my $t = $m->tag()->artist()->toCString
+();
  DB<2> n
main::HashMPEG(audio:224):      print $t . "\n";
  DB<2> p $t
Wide character in print at (eval 11)[/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5d
+b.pl:628] line 2.
 at (eval 11)[/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5db.pl:628] line 2
    eval '($@, $!, $^E, $,, $/, $\\, $^W) = @saved;package main; $^D =
+ $^D | $DB::db_stop;
print {$DB::OUT}  $t;

;' called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5db.pl line 628
    DB::eval called at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl5db.pl line 3410
    DB::DB called at audio line 224
    main::HashMPEG('/TestMusic/Blue \x{99}yster Cult/Don\'t Fear the R
+e...', 'HASH(0x845ea50)') called at audio line 292
Blue Öyster Cult
  DB<3> n
Wide character in print at audio line 224.
 at audio line 224
    main::HashMPEG('/TestMusic/Blue \x{99}yster Cult/Don\'t Fear the R
+e...', 'HASH(0x845ea50)') called at audio line 292
Blue Öyster Cult
main::HashMPEG(audio:225):      print $filename . "\n";
  DB<3> q
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