Unbalanced audio

[Fijay1Z]

Recently I realized my audio sounds unbalanced, its louder in one ear. Im pretty sure theres something wrong with my dac (Audiotrack Prodigy Cube Black Edition) since its unbalanced no matter which pair of headphones i use. Is there any easy way to diagnose whats broken and repair it? I dont really want to spend money to buy a new dac

[Bombastinator]

51 minutes ago, Fijay1Z said:

Recently I realized my audio sounds unbalanced, its louder in one ear. Im pretty sure theres something wrong with my dac (Audiotrack Prodigy Cube Black Edition) since its unbalanced no matter which pair of headphones i use. Is there any easy way to diagnose whats broken and repair it? I dont really want to spend money to buy a new dac

There’s one other thing in that equation: your ears.  I got a friend who developed cookie byte hearing loss from working in a factory thing as a 20 year old.  Didn’t hit till well after 40.  Factory had actually moved and ten years is a long time for a workman’s comp. Suit.  There’s a specific range of sound where he’s nearly dead though.  Hearing protection is not a joke.

[Fijay1Z]

28 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There’s one other thing in that equation: your ears.  I got a friend who developed cookie byte hearing loss from working in a factory thing as a 20 year old.  Didn’t hit till well after 40.  Factory had actually moved and ten years is a long time for a workman’s comp. Suit.  There’s a specific range of sound where he’s nearly dead though.  Hearing protection is not a joke.

The thing is im almost sure its my dac because i can hear a weird sound when using the volume knob and and the difference on volume levels between ears is bigger when the volume knob is set lower value

[Fijay1Z]

1 minute ago, Fijay1Z said:

The thing is im almost sure its my dac because i can hear a weird sound when using the volume knob and and the difference on volume levels between ears is bigger when the volume knob is set lower value

i also found out that the difference on volume levels between ears changed when i plugged my dac to a different usb port

[Heats with Nvidia]

5 hours ago, Fijay1Z said:

The thing is im almost sure its my dac because i can hear a weird sound when using the volume knob and and the difference on volume levels between ears is bigger when the volume knob is set lower value

That sounds like a normal bad potentiometer. These logarithmic potentiometers can have really bad gang error and when they start to fail, it can get a lot worse. Just to be sure and rule out your ears are the source of your problem, just find a setting, where the difference between both channels is really audible and then wear your headphones the wrong way around and hear if the difference changes the side with the headphones or not. Also, what happens when you crank the potentiometer to its max end reduce the volume of your source, are both sides now equal in volume?

5 hours ago, Fijay1Z said:

i also found out that the difference on volume levels between ears changed when i plugged my dac to a different usb port

I actually cant see any scenario, where this makes any sense, than a broken connection inside your dac, which you are simply moving because you physically unplugged and plugged something into it.

 

Are you really sure about that?

[Fijay1Z]

19 hours ago, Heats with Nvidia said:

That sounds like a normal bad potentiometer. These logarithmic potentiometers can have really bad gang error and when they start to fail, it can get a lot worse. Just to be sure and rule out your ears are the source of your problem, just find a setting, where the difference between both channels is really audible and then wear your headphones the wrong way around and hear if the difference changes the side with the headphones or not. Also, what happens when you crank the potentiometer to its max end reduce the volume of your source, are both sides now equal in volume?

I actually cant see any scenario, where this makes any sense, than a broken connection inside your dac, which you are simply moving because you physically unplugged and plugged something into it.

 

Are you really sure about that?

the difference is definitely there. When i crank the potentiometer to max i can hear a hissing noise in both ears but it also didnt fix the problem, both sides are still not equal.

 

Well i know theres something wrong with the ports in the back. There was only this one weird one that made the difference between ears even worse, one doesnt work at all (but for all devices no matter what it is), two make it work fine but i cant use both a microphone a headphones at the same time, probably not enough power. The rest four ports work fine. Idk theres something wrong with it but i dont think its the cause of the problem. I tried connecting my dac to a laptop and had the same problem. Even after connecting to my smartphone I can still hear it

[Bombastinator]

29 minutes ago, Fijay1Z said:

the difference is definitely there. When i crank the potentiometer to max i can hear a hissing noise in both ears but it also didnt fix the problem, both sides are still not equal.

 

Well i know theres something wrong with the ports in the back. There was only this one weird one that made the difference between ears even worse, one doesnt work at all (but for all devices no matter what it is), two make it work fine but i cant use both a microphone a headphones at the same time, probably not enough power. The rest four ports work fine. Idk theres something wrong with it but i dont think its the cause of the problem. I tried connecting my dac to a laptop and had the same problem. Even after connecting to my smartphone I can still hear it

Sudden random thought that might be dumb: R and L are often switchable at the OS level.  If you switch them does the weak channel change?  Not sure what to do with it or if it matters.  Thinking that if it does it might mean something and if it doesn’t it might mean something.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Fijay1Z]

27 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Sudden random thought that might be dumb: R and L are often switchable at the OS level.  If you switch them does the weak channel change?  Not sure what to do with it or if it matters.  Thinking that if it does it might mean something and if it doesn’t it might mean something.

Im not really sure where I can change that, was looking at audio options but couldnt find it

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, Fijay1Z said:

Im not really sure where I can change that, was looking at audio options but couldnt find it

Used to be like settings->sound or audio or something. There was a gui.  Changes what channel comes out of the rear audio jacks.  There was a tester too with a bloop or ping or something.