Static/Distortion when playing music?

[ShiftyW]

Hi, I don't know if anybody can answer this question but I'm kind of at a loss for how to solve this problem. Recently when playing my music I've noticed that there is a slight bit of distortion and it almost sounds like static, I initially thought it was related to the bass but it happens in pretty much any music at varying volumes. I can't figure out what in God's name is causing it, and I've seen reports where high-end video cards could cause it (A month or so ago I bought an 8800GTS, but I never noticed much sound change afterwards). Basically what I'm saying is the music no longer sounds anywhere near as crisp as it used to. I've also verified that it's not certain songs because I've played through a good chunk of my library that never had any problems before and it is displayed there as well. For the record, it's an SB Live! 24-bit card...Yes, it's old, don't hate. I've upgraded almost every component of this computer since I got it 4 years ago and never bothered with the sound card. haha =)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[kamkal]

are your speakers/headphones going bad? do you have another set of speakers/headphones to test with?

bad cables?

do you have onboard sound? you can test your speakers with the onboard sound if you do

does this happen in movies, games or any other places that produce sound?

 

[ShiftyW]

Idk if the speakers are going bad. This seems to be a recurring theme with these Creative Speakers (two speakers and a subwoofer setup) where they last for maybe a little over a year and then I start to have problems again. It's kind of ridiculous that I should be paying ~$80 for speakers that are only going to last a year. I have no idea if the cables are bad or anything, I just use the default ones that come with the speakers. As for whether it happens in movies or games, I do seem to get a bit of what sounds like static ambience in the background when playing WAR, but I don't watch many movies on my computer and those that I do generally don't have any sound issues.

 

[jaeger2000]

Try a different media playing. Such as Gom. It could be hardware related (speakers) but more likely due to software.
kind regards,
Ian Gregory, Sydney.