Audio balance problems (iTunes?)

September 12, 2006 11:07 PM

My WinXP PC is suddenly playing music with a weird mix between the two channels.

With the balance faders (control panel and playback app) in dead center, the sound coming out is like what's left when you subtract the left channel from the right channel. If I slide to either side, the instruments and vocals get clearer and louder (of course in different proportions, depending on the mix). In the middle it's muddy and the vocals are buried.

I noticed this right after I installed iTunes 7. I checked "Safe Mode" in the Quicktime control panel audio tab, but I don't think it's a quicktime problem because the same problem happens in Windows Media Player and Audacity. I did notice while I was futzing around with the equalizer in WMP that the problem suddenly went away, but I don't know if it was a result of what I was doing. When it went away, it also seemed like it went away in iTunes. But then it came back.

I'm thinking this is iTunes/Quicktime related but it's odd that it affects playback in WMP. Thoughts?

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to computers & internet (2 comments total)

Intermittent earth connection on your speaker plug?
posted by flabdablet at 11:28 PM on September 12, 2006

Sounds like the polarity of one of the speakers is backwards. It's unlikely to be a software issue (although you never know these days). Probably flaky wiring in the speaker plug or wire.
posted by neckro23 at 12:18 AM on September 13, 2006