I had something similar happen once - my computer had incorrectly decided that the default output should be 5.1 and was sending the bulk of things to my non-existent center channel. I don’t remember how I fixed it, but that’s a direction you could look.
That’s a good idea. You need to get to the real sound panel not the modern one. I think there’s a link in the upper right of the sound properties window. Once there you want to “configure” your speakers and make sure they are set up as stereo and not surround.
I had almost the opposite problem recently, though with a similar outcome. My computer suddenly insisted that my 5.1 setup was a stereo one, and refused to send any center channel audio anywhere. It took a lot of unplugging and replugging and resetting of audio drivers before it worked again, though I can’t say for certain what fixed it.
That’s a very good point, it may think you’re in 5.1 and since you have no center speaker everything sounds really faint.
Even so, shouldn’t there still be louder output occasionally from left and right? I have 5.1 and l&r aren’t always muted.
A surprising amount of sound comes to the center speaker.
I am not in 5.1 mode. Or, I don’t know where else to check and see that it might be in 5.1 mode (or some other mode).
So the low volume setting was set to 80%, I set it to do nothing. I think this has improved things although they still don’t feel right to me. Everything is cranked to max still (including e.g. Music Bee’s volume), and I shouldn’t be able to do that. Maybe I’m still missing a volume slider somewhere. Or something is configured weird.
When the AC kicks on that will help test. Also, I just realized I could plug my speakers into my work laptop so that might also help diagnose things.
Switch it to 5.1 and then switch it back.
QUADRAPHONIC IS AN OPTION???
Switch to that!
Switching to 5.1 and back did nothing.
I switched to Quadraphonic, but that didn’t change anything. I tried doing it both with and without the rear speakers disabled. No change.
Oh, I didn’t mean it would help your problem any. I meant it would be awesome.
Whenever I’ve had PC audio weirdness in all the time I’ve spent recording LPs and whatnot, it’s always been some deep-buried setting that some software must have switched on me. I feel like if your motherboard sound were going bad the volume wouldn’t be low, it would be zero, and if it were low it would also be intermittent or werpy.
Were you wearing bellbottoms and an afro with a pick in it?
I had a quadraphonic 8-track deck at home that had this little joystick like thing that let you shift the sound balance. Way cool. Circa 1978.
Try putting it in quad/5.1 again and move the cable to the rear and c/sub ports to see if you get louder sound.
I found this that has a bunch of things to try, if you haven’t already tried them
You 100% need to do this, ASAP. Without this, you can’t tell if it’s the speakers, especially since you’ve confirmed that headphones sound fine on that computer. Testing the computer on other speakers and the speakers on another source are the best first steps.
I already did this (see up thread, search for “Pebble”, but I had the same results as the CR3s; volume way too low. They sounded about the same).
The speakers work normally on the work laptop though - that is, they’re too fucking loud by a lot turned to max, listening to a video on youtube that isn’t at max volume.
@TundraToad I found a similar -w eirdly similar, someone must have done some scraping - article to that. One thing, I cannot for the life of me find the “Enhancements” options anywhere. There’s no tab for them where that article says to go (properties for the individual device). The thing is, I’ve seen them at some point during this odyssey, I just can’t fucking find them again.
Last night I was actually shopping for quad 8-track systems. I knew that very few quad titles had been released on vinyl, but I didn’t know how different the situation was for 8-track. The tapes are priced out the ying yang now, though. Wish I’d known that would happen when I was thrifting for Atari carts every weekend back in the late 90s, because Atari carts were so often confused with 8-track tapes by young thrift employees that I always checked those bins too.
So when I get a player, PD, I’m gonna bring it over and we’ll listen to it through two sets of your speakers, and we won’t have this problem of yours.