Bizarre Audio Problems

[DrewT]

My system has recently developed some really weird and baffling problems with audio playback. Some sources sound fine. Others sound like they're at the bottom of a lake. And weirdest of all, in some (especially YouTube music videos) the instruments will be way up front while the vocals are barely audible (if at all). Is there some kind of karaoke filter built into the system that has somehow been turned on? And even if there were, that wouldn't explain the garbled, underwater sound I get from other sources. I've been using Ubuntu for 12 years but I am no Linux maven and I have no idea how to go about troubleshooting this. All suggestions welcome!

[crip720]

Had similar problem last week, found out it was a new extension causing bad audio. Would check/remember if you added anything recently or try with all extensions disabled in case an update to one is causing it.

[DrewT]

Had similar problem last week, found out it was a new extension causing bad audio. Would check/remember if you added anything recently or try with all extensions disabled in case an update to one is causing it.

You mean a browser extension? Unfortunately this problem is not limited to online sources. Many local video files and most if not all local audio files exhibit the same problem, and it doesn't seem to matter what app is used to open them.

[crip720]

Would think this might be more of a hardware problem. What speakers are you using(internal/external) and can you try either headphones/earphones or external speakers. If using external try playing with cable. Should be a sound setting in system settings, but usually can only change volume/balance and set which speaker to use. The test sound is for balance, but try it and see if sounds right.

[DrewT]

Would think this might be more of a hardware problem. What speakers are you using(internal/external) and can you try either headphones/earphones or external speakers. If using external try playing with cable. Should be a sound setting in system settings, but usually can only change volume/balance and set which speaker to use. The test sound is for balance, but try it and see if sounds right.

Nailed it. How embarrassing. I use headphones, and a little testing established that (1) my extension cable was bad (right channel gone), and (2) the front output jack has issues of its own -- lots of static and noise. Replaced cable and plugged it into the back panel jack, and everything seems fine. Doh!

[crip720]

If they were not problem, next steps might end up at sound card or difficult software problem. Had phone person come to see why I had no internet, checked cable ends and everything before calling, mice chewed cable in middle behind something, which I did not check if cable was in one piece.

[DrewT]

At least you had the mice for an excuse. I've done more things like that than I can count, and there were no mice involved. Thanks in this case for reminding me to do the simple troubleshooting before hitting the panic button.

[ajgreeny]

Great news! Glad you figured it out.

Please mark as SOLVED from the Thread Tools menu up-top if this is now solved to your satisfaction.

It is a great help to other users searching the forum, whether they have mice or not!

[DrewT]

I was trying to figure out how to do that, thanks!