Help, need to reset to default, massive reverb on audio

Hello, I have a creative live card, and the problem is that the voice
channel is totally messed up and is in massive reverb mode. No matter
what program I choose (media player, winamp) the voice channel (playing
avi or mp3) is barely audible due to massive reverb. I've tried
reseting the defaults on every related audio program in my start menu,
and even installing new creative drivers. No go. Please help, thanks.
EAX settings are all at default "none" as far as I can see, but whatever
I listen to sounds like it's coming down a 2 mile tube. Any ideas?

Clipper <> wrote:

>Hello, I have a creative live card, and the problem is that the voice
>channel is totally messed up and is in massive reverb mode. No matter
>what program I choose (media player, winamp) the voice channel (playing
>avi or mp3) is barely audible due to massive reverb. I've tried
>resetting the defaults on every related audio program in my start menu,
>and even installing new creative drivers. No go. Please help, thanks.
>EAX settings are all at default "none" as far as I can see, but whatever
>I listen to sounds like it's coming down a 2 mile tube. Any ideas?

Never mind, I found the problem: a loose headphone plug. Although why
this would make mp3 files sound like they been put through some kind of
Karaoke converter with music sounding nearly normal but all the vocals
coming out almost indistinguishable is very strange. And it wasn't just
faint, but had extreme reverb.

The reason I was sure it was a software setting problem is that I've had
similar symptoms before, and setting the defaults back in the EAX
control panel always fixed it. It was usually caused when a game that
used sound positioning crashed and left things messed up.

Oh well, glad to have it back to normal.

> Never mind, I found the problem: a loose headphone plug. Although why
> this would make mp3 files sound like they been put through some kind of
> Karaoke converter with music sounding nearly normal but all the vocals
> coming out almost indistinguishable is very strange. And it wasn't just
> faint, but had extreme reverb.

Ah! I can tell you exactly why.

Thanks to the partially withdrawn plug, the sound was being sent through the
two earpieces in series, but you were only hearing one channel. The vocals
must have been on the other channel.

OR... if for some reason you lost the ground connection but kept the right
and left channel connection, you would actually get a karaoke conversion.
The signal would go through the 2 earphones in series, but you would only be
hearing the difference between L and R. That is exactly how karaoke
conversion works -- they remove what is identical in the two channels, and
that zaps the lead vocal, which is normally right in the center.