Ver. 2.3.3 and Appimage 3.1 both: Generated Tones only Play in the left ear

Hi, I have been working with Audacity for about 7 months now. I had never seen this issue before. But today for the first time I noticed that generated tones only play in the left ear. All other mono or stereo sounds even “Noises” generated play in both ears. I think I have found a bug. But I have been wrong in the past. Can you help me figure this one out too?

I am using Zorin OS 16. I installed the 2.3.3 one from the GUI software store of the OS and the Appimage I just downloaded today and tried it and produced the same issue.

Please provide step-by-step instructions for how to reproduce the issue.

You just create a mono or stereo track. This might be of importance: The frequency of the sine I generated was at 10,000 Hz. And then whether I play it in Audacity itself or export to MP3 at insane (320 kbps) rate, there was no sound in the right ear. In fact let me try a different frequency right now …

Haha, what a shocker! Even a tone at 528 Hz plays with no issue in both ears. So it might be just 10,000 Hz that produces the problem.

I hope that was helpful.

Could it be a problem with your headphones? (try some other headphones)

Darn it. It is my headphone. The laptop’s left speaker has no problem playing 10,000 Hz.

Thank you so much for your kind help.

By the way I really enjoy using Audacity a lot. It does everything that I need it to do. But I cannot find a page where I can donate a few dollars to the cause. Is this intentional? You do not need financial assistance?

It even helps to find faults with headphones :wink:


Yes. The donations page was removed from the website when Audacity was acquired by MuseGroup. As MuseGroup are a commercial company, we decided it was no longer appropriate to receive donations.