low quality

[heimdallr1]

hi all,

i have been using audacity for some time now without any problems until a week or two ago. i generated a click track and immediately noticed that the track didn't sound quite right, as if it were under water or behind a concrete wall or something. i tried exporting the track to see if it were just a problem inside audacity, but to no avail. i have since tried to use the program several times all resulting in the same really low quality sound. i tried re-installing the software, restoring default settings, manually going through menus and the like searching for a solution but had come up with nothing. i then tried to update to 1.3x, thinking it was perhaps an issue with 1.2x and vista but this also didn't work. my hardware configuration has remained identical since the program worked flawlessly. i record through a line6 pod gx, run vista x84, i have 2 GB of ddr2 memory and an intel pentium d processor in my recording machine with a generic realtek hd audio interface on the motherboard.

any help/suggestions would be most appreciated and i appologise if a query such as this has been asked previously, i was unable to find any answers using the search function. thanks again for any help.

[steve]

Have you tried playing a "known-to-be-good" audio file? (both in Audacity and in your usual media player)? What happens?

[heimdallr1]

i have indeed tried playing "known-to-be-good" audio files, with the same result. it seems any audio played in or produced by audacity ends up really low quality/muffled/odd sounding but no playback quality/recording quality etc options seem to have an affect.

[steve]

So it's a playback problem for all sound on your computer?

Check the wiring to your speakers/headphones.
Try a different pair of headphones.
Any difference?