Windows 10 problem with Audio levels and quality.

[Regularjake55]

I have a win10 computer and I use winamp with no EQ. I have noticed that my audio is fairly quiet (about how you think it would sound at around 60% when set at 100% volume.) and that when I bring the vol up to 100% it also has a weird distortion in the bass even tho it doesn't even sound that loud for being at 100%...
Specs:
FX-6300
MSI 760GM-P34FX
8GB RAM
XFX RX480 Black Edition
CX600M
1TB HDD
500GB Samsung Evo SSD
Logitech z313 speakers w/Skullcandy Crushers plugged in (don't lecture me on Skullcandy I already know but I love these specific headphones for gaming)

I already have my Realtek drivers updated to the newest available version and here are some of my windows audio settings:
NO ENHANCEMENTS (Loudness EQ does NOT solve this problem btw)
and quality is set to 24bit 192000 Hz Studio Quality

and the bass starts to distort when I have Windows audio at 100% and Winamp at about 78%, any higher and it just gets worse

 

[Regularjake55]

and btw the song I used to test with is Wicked by Future

 

[the nerd 389]

In order for the hardware to run at 192 kHz sampling rate, it has to resample all audio streams from the usual 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz to 192 kHz.

192 kHz is also known to cause many issues beyond slightly distorted audio. These include inaccurate normalization, increased background noise, increased distortion, increased latency, increased CPU consumption, etc., etc.

See if switching resolves the issue. If not, run the headphones directly to the computer. It will usually have a cleaner headphone output, anyway.

 

[americanaudiophile]

The speakers have their own volume control.
For best sound the digital volume control on the PC should be 100% and you leave it there. Use the speaker volume control.
If the speaker volume control isn't an input level control then you may be overloading the input of the speaker which would cause distortion regardless of the speaker volume control setting.

 

[Regularjake55]

The speakers have their own volume control.
For best sound the digital volume control on the PC should be 100% and you leave it there. Use the speaker volume control.
If the speaker volume control isn't an input level control then you may be overloading the input of the speaker which would cause distortion regardless of the speaker volume control setting.

The speaker dial does not do anything when using headphones.

 

[Regularjake55]

In order for the hardware to run at 192 kHz sampling rate, it has to resample all audio streams from the usual 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz to 192 kHz.

192 kHz is also known to cause many issues beyond slightly distorted audio. These include inaccurate normalization, increased background noise, increased distortion, increased latency, increased CPU consumption, etc., etc.

See if switching resolves the issue. If not, run the headphones directly to the computer. It will usually have a cleaner headphone output, anyway.

I tried changing it to 16bit 48000 Hz and it's still around the same vol. I am going to try just plugging the headphones straight into the computer rather than the speakers and see if that does anything

 

[Regularjake55]

In order for the hardware to run at 192 kHz sampling rate, it has to resample all audio streams from the usual 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz to 192 kHz.

192 kHz is also known to cause many issues beyond slightly distorted audio. These include inaccurate normalization, increased background noise, increased distortion, increased latency, increased CPU consumption, etc., etc.

See if switching resolves the issue. If not, run the headphones directly to the computer. It will usually have a cleaner headphone output, anyway.

Ok it seems that plugging the headphones straight into the jack works, but now I have another problem. The cord for these headphones is like 1.5 ft or so and I can't sit comfortably at my desk with the headphones plugged directly into the computer, and to make matters worse, Skullcandy has a special smaller sized cord that they have for these headphones, meaning I can't just buy a longer cord even tho the cord is replaceable. I would guess my only choice is an AUX extension cord, but again we have a problem. I already have one of these cables yet the audio is very spotty and it is most likely the fault of the Skullcandy cable's connection to the extensions input and I know this because when I try to use these headphones with an audio splitter the same thing occurs. Basically it is that if I plug the cable all the way into the female port, the quality goes down the crapper, and there is a "sweet spot" where if you have the cable like *almost* plugged all the way in then it sounds OK. But this can be messed up easily by moving the cord even a little or twisting it. I have no idea what to do.