Audacity Forum

Is it possible that you are up against an issue related to the soundcard drivers? Are your soundcard drivers Win8 compliant?

Sadly, I've tried that and still no joy.

Are you using Windows's own drivers or the one from your sound card manufacturer?

Within Audacity, I've tried selecting MME and when that didn't work I tried Windows Direct Sound. These are the only two options in the drop down.
Then within the output drop down, I've tried Speakers (RealTech Hi Def) and Microsoft Sound Mapper-Output (again the only two options)
and on the input side, Line In(RealTech Hi Def) and Microsoft Sound Mapper-input (again the only two options)

Is there something else I can try changing or looking at?

I would try a different freeware or trialware and see if the problem persists.
Not Audacity's fault as you know Windows 8 isn't in list of supported OS also Win8 could have drive compatibility issues we don't know yet until we try all possibilities.

I understand that it's not Audacity's fault, but they will eventually have to play in the Win8 world and I hope they use this report as something to start testing. Other audio playback apps seem to work fine, but I have not tried other recording software. I guess I'll try to find other recording software to test.
Thanks.

As PGA indicated earlier it's most likely the sound card that need to play in Win8-land - by and large Audacity will record what the sound card sends it.

There were similar problems with W7 when it was new and sound card manufacturers had not provided updated drivers.

WC