Trouble capturing streaming audio

Windows 8, upgraded to 10, Lenovo laptop that’s pretty decent, I think, Audacity 2.3.0

At one point I thought I had it.

When I capture streaming audio it just doesn’t sound as clean as it should. With some settings it sounds horribly canned, other settings it gets a little better but sometimes I hear what I think is sibilance. It just doesn’t sound as good as the original.

I’ve tried what I think is every combination of settings from the Edit>preferences tabs, looked through tutorials, I just can’t get it.

On my Desktop Dell I convert my vinyl LP’s to digital files nicely. On my laptop, I just can’t capture streaming audio the way I like.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Check you are actually recording the signal sent to the speakers, (WASAPI),
rather than recording the computer’s internal-microphone hearing the sound from the speakers.

NB: Windows can add “enhancements” to audio output , like fake surround-sound …

Try turning those “enhancements” off.