Poor quality audio from PC. What gives?

[Manmademan]

So here's my personal enemy (I found two major improvements for it below, but they don't fix it all the way) I've been actively fighting against for two years: seriously muddy and "unfocused" audio, and a frustrating lack of audiovisual agreement with what I see on my screen and what I hear through my headphones. This is absolutely crucial in proper enjoyment of audio in general:
being able to pinpoint locational sound cues and being able to be fully immersed in the world of music, movies and games.

Picture this: you're playing a game where an enemy is clearly standing still in front of you firing a weapon at you, but you're not able to pinpoint where _exactly_, without a doubt in your mind, it is coming from. You can clearly see the enemy on your screen, but the audio itself is so unfocused that it has a very disconnected quality to it, like it's coming from nowhere instead of your headphones, instead it's just barely good enough for you to go "yeah I think the sound is coming from in front", but by then you're already dead.

Or this: audio so convincingly real that you flinch out of human instinct because it just sounded like somebody broke down your door.. and you nonchalantly going "oh, yeah that sounded pretty real".

Or when it comes to music, it feels like you're constantly, 100% the time waiting for the big drop/sweet chorus, but it never ever comes.
Everything sounds muddy, almost mono-like, as if you were outside in a windy storm and somebody is trying to tell you something, but without the wind noise.
This isn't about sound files being low quality, or the sound design of the sound itself, but how my headphones play back sound from my PC. I have two DT 770 80/250Ohm headphones and a DAC/Amp, and I know they're not the issue.
I took my DAC/Amp and headphone setup to another place for a quick listen and while the sound quality itself didn't change much at all, the crystal clarity and "focus" improved massively and that alone made the headphones come to alive, like the audio was outside my head and there was clearly a sense of space and depth.
When I got back, the quality wasn't the same, and gradually and quickly went back to what I thought was just how they sound.

I spent nearly 1000€ on a list of things in hopes of finding a fix, including: a DC blocker, extension cords with EMI/RFI filtering, new PSU, new motherboard, mouse, keyboard, full metal PC case, 4 different DACs and amps, 10 different shielded USB/RCA/SPDIF audio cables, USB isolator/RCA isolator, switched out all PC components, took a big bite of an apple, changed every PC peripheral, 3 TV/Data coax splitters, (are you still reading this?), proper shielded coax cables for TV/internet router, reinstalled Windows 10/11 a thousand times, million different driver version installs, moved the location of my desk/my computer in my apartment (this was the first real improvement)..and so on.
When I thought I fixed it, the audio improved for a short period of time but then soon gradually lost its focus and clarity.. and back to square one. It's like something in the electricity shifts but quickly returns back into place.
Changing the location of my PC improved the audio and the improvement lasts.. but didn't completely fix it.

The second improvement that has helped (not completely fixed) immensely: an extension cord that does not have the metal grounding tabs on the sides. An ungrounded extension cord that cost 4€, and then plugged both my PC and monitor in it to an ungrounded outlet.
Whatever it was/is, the ground tabs must have allowed something to constantly flow between my PC and monitor grounds but nowhere for it to go. Now the PC and monitor grounds are floating (not connected to any other ground/appliance ground) and only share the live and neutral.
(Not an electrician, feel free to laugh)

But as it says at the top of this post, it's not fixed all the way. The audio still sounds quite muddy and I feel like it can still be improved, but it's definitely clearer and more in focus than before after the second improvement.

After having gone through all that, this is my conclusion:
It is my old European 70s-built apartment itself (and a type of interference radiating inside it, causing this all).
It took me ages to figure it out, but there is some type of interference that is at its strongest near my apartment's windows and TV coax outlet corner area in my living room. I have moved my desk and PC as far away from it as I could, but it's still not enough.

To confirm my suspicion, I tried plugging my headphones into my phone to completely disconnect from my apartment's electricity, then continuously and carefully listened to music while walking back and forth between my living room and bathroom: the audio quality changed between worst (near the windows), and best (in the bathroom). How ridiculous is that sentence?

[cybepine]

Do the test again with your phone; shut down all electricity from the breaker panel. Then go back to that window spot where the sound was the worst. Does the sound still change?

And if necessary, also turn the switches on one by one to isolate the fault/problem.

Do you live in apartment complex? Do you cable TV and not a aerial TV?

From what I can speculate, I think you have a broken or loose wiring in one of the outlets. If this happens to be the case. Do not try to fix it yourself.

You should plug your computer back to grounded outlet. Let´s just say that is not "healthy" for you in the long run.

[Manmademan]

Do the test again with your phone; shut down all electricity from the breaker panel. Then go back to that window spot where the sound was the worst. Does the sound still change?

And if necessary, also turn the switches on one by one to isolate the fault/problem.

Do you live in apartment complex? Do you cable TV and not a aerial TV?

From what I can speculate, I think you have a broken or loose wiring in one of the outlets. If this happens to be the case. Do not try to fix it yourself.

You should plug your computer back to grounded outlet. Let´s just say that is not "healthy" for you in the long run.

Thanks for the breaker panel and phone-only idea. I'll have to report back on it later.

I live in an apartment complex with cable TV. I've thought about my next door neighbors being the culprit, but I doubt that. I have tried the headphones plugged into phone-trick right next to the wall that separates my balcony from theirs but the audio remained much the same.

Shutting off power to certain rooms is something I tried before and noticed it made some difference to the clarity and focus. I think the fewer circuits the electricity goes through, the better the audio is. I noticed the very same thing when I ran my computer with bare-minimum number of components (no PC case, 1 RAM stick, CPU air-cooler without fans plugged in.. etc.)

I should have clarified it, but the ungrounded wall outlets are normal in pre-late 90s homes in parts of Europe before they made it mandatory to ground every outlet. The only grounded outlets are found in the kitchen and bathroom. I've tried running a long daisy-chained extension cord from both before, but ultimately they weren't "the" fix.

To me this is a sure sign of strong over the air interference that is radiating 24/7 into my PC and everything else in my apartment, including the magnetic field of my headphones' speakers (I don't actually know) that it starts seriously affecting the audio clarity even if the headphones are connected to nothing but to a phone, and changes in severity when I simply move closer to the source.

[Manmademan]

So the audio still degraded when I listened to music through my phone, when I walked from the bathroom to the living room window area after switching off the main power switch.

If it's not my apartment's electricity, maybe it's the grounded radiator and water pipes right under and next to the living room window? The water pipes run straight up and down through every floor in the building.

[cybepine]

So the audio still degraded when I listened to music through my phone, when I walked from the bathroom to the living room window area after switching off the main power switch.

If it's not my apartment's electricity, maybe it's the grounded radiator and water pipes right under and next to the living room window? The water pipes run straight up and down through every floor in the building.

Yes, it could be and your problem just got harder to fix...

Do you mean you have water heater outside or is it just heat pump (air)?

Just to be safe do not touch ground wire (of that radiator) or those pipes. There might be flowing "stray current", continuous current. The ground wires should not never have continuous current on them.

Call an electrician or if you rent through your landlord. And explain the situation. Say the radiator is malfunctioning and causing interference and you suspect there is continuous current on the ground wire. Only way to be sure is to test the ground wire with earth leakage current clamp meter. And be ready to show them the same sound test with your phone.

I have too TN-C system, I had to take ground from kitchen with guite long extension cord.

[Manmademan]

So the audio still degraded when I listened to music through my phone, when I walked from the bathroom to the living room window area after switching off the main power switch.

If it's not my apartment's electricity, maybe it's the grounded radiator and water pipes right under and next to the living room window? The water pipes run straight up and down through every floor in the building.

Yes, it could be and your problem just got harder to fix...

Do you mean you have water heater outside or is it just heat pump (air)?

Just to be safe do not touch ground wire (of that radiator) or those pipes. There might be flowing "stray current", continuous current. The ground wires should not never have continuous current on them.

Call an electrician or if you rent through your landlord. And explain the situation. Say the radiator is malfunctioning and causing interference and you suspect there is continuous current on the ground wire. Only way to be sure is to test the ground wire with earth leakage current clamp meter. And be ready to show them the same sound test with your phone.

I have too TN-C system, I had to take ground from kitchen with guite long extension cord.

It's a water-heated radiator. The living room window is 2 meters wide, and the radiator is exactly the same length that sits right under it. There are 2 water pipes running from top to bottom on the same wall right to the left of the window, for hot and cold water. The radiator itself seems to be made of hard metal, like iron. It's not flimsy or thin like aluminum.

I couldn't find any ground wire that you mentioned. The radiator and pipes also seemed fine to touch, they're painted white.
Yeah, I'm not sure what else there is to do other than call an electrician and tell them about the issue.

There's one last thing: the only type of wired internet connection that was available in this place used to be an old VDSL connection through a 3-pin phone socket in the wall, but two years ago an electrician came over to my apartment to do something to the TV/Radio coaxial socket (which is also grounded) because they were introducing proper cable internet for the apartment building.
Now the internet connection comes from that TV/Radio socket which my TV and router are plugged into, which is why I had tried different TV/Data coax splitters.
It seemed to me like they made a difference to the audio too, especially if I plug my TV in one coax socket in the wall and my router in the other.. as if the interference is being drained quicker to the ground when both sockets are in use, but I don't really know.
Could they have done something to the grounding of the coaxial socket in the process?

[cybepine]

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought the radiator was outside of your apartment.

As I now understand you meant basic water heater radiator, as we know those do not have any wires.

And now I might better know what is causing this...
Someone or more than one (in your apartment complex) has used water heater radiator as a ground. This is illegal and very dangerous.

https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions ... e-radiator

Now you have electrical interference flowing through all those apartment complex pipes.

It might a waste to call the electrician as this cannot be fixed. You don't know who has done it.

"Could they have done something to the grounding of the coaxial socket in the process?"

Could be.

[Manmademan]

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought the radiator was outside of your apartment.

As I now understand you meant basic water heater radiator, as we know those do not have any wires.

And now I might better know what is causing this...
Someone or more than one (in your apartment complex) has used water heater radiator as a ground. This is illegal and very dangerous.

https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions ... e-radiator

Now you have electrical interference flowing through all those apartment complex pipes.

It might a waste to call the electrician as this cannot be fixed. You don't know who has done it.

"Could they have done something to the grounding of the coaxial socket in the process?"

Could be.

That seems to be the cause after all and does makes perfect sense in this case.

Here's a quick recording I did on my phone using an app called EMF Detector, and while I think it's not showing the actual interference levels, I think it shows how magnetic the radiator is and how that can radiate interference.. or something. The red spike is when I placed my phone right in the spot where the adjustable temperature knob is and where the wall pipe enters into the radiator.

[cybepine]

Yeah, it does give some indication that there is something. But I don't think it is very accurate. The numbers should not change.

I have very accurate measurement device, which is quite expensive. Magnetic field does not change, when I move it to close to the water heater radiator. The slight deviation is from my shaking hands. This is as it should be.

Also one cheap way is to use AM radio. The noise should not change.

If you decide to call the electrician you can ask him to use earth leakage current clamp meter on those water pipes (in bathroom also). I just repeat here as a precaution, do not touch bare metal parts on those pipes.

[MegaMelmek]

So here's my personal enemy (I found two major improvements for it below, but they don't fix it all the way) I've been actively fighting against for two years: seriously muddy and "unfocused" audio, and a frustrating lack of audiovisual agreement with what I see on my screen and what I hear through my headphones. This is absolutely crucial in proper enjoyment of audio in general:
being able to pinpoint locational sound cues and being able to be fully immersed in the world of music, movies and games.

Picture this: you're playing a game where an enemy is clearly standing still in front of you firing a weapon at you, but you're not able to pinpoint where _exactly_, without a doubt in your mind, it is coming from. You can clearly see the enemy on your screen, but the audio itself is so unfocused that it has a very disconnected quality to it, like it's coming from nowhere instead of your headphones, instead it's just barely good enough for you to go "yeah I think the sound is coming from in front", but by then you're already dead.

Or this: audio so convincingly real that you flinch out of human instinct because it just sounded like somebody broke down your door.. and you nonchalantly going "oh, yeah that sounded pretty real".

Or when it comes to music, it feels like you're constantly, 100% the time waiting for the big drop/sweet chorus, but it never ever comes.
Everything sounds muddy, almost mono-like, as if you were outside in a windy storm and somebody is trying to tell you something, but without the wind noise.
This isn't about sound files being low quality, or the sound design of the sound itself, but how my headphones play back sound from my PC. I have two DT 770 80/250Ohm headphones and a DAC/Amp, and I know they're not the issue.
I took my DAC/Amp and headphone setup to another place for a quick listen and while the sound quality itself didn't change much at all, the crystal clarity and "focus" improved massively and that alone made the headphones come to alive, like the audio was outside my head and there was clearly a sense of space and depth.
When I got back, the quality wasn't the same, and gradually and quickly went back to what I thought was just how they sound.

I spent nearly 1000€ on a list of things in hopes of finding a fix, including: a DC blocker, extension cords with EMI/RFI filtering, new PSU, new motherboard, mouse, keyboard, full metal PC case, 4 different DACs and amps, 10 different shielded USB/RCA/SPDIF audio cables, USB isolator/RCA isolator, switched out all PC components, took a big bite of an apple, changed every PC peripheral, 3 TV/Data coax splitters, (are you still reading this?), proper shielded coax cables for TV/internet router, reinstalled Windows 10/11 a thousand times, million different driver version installs, moved the location of my desk/my computer in my apartment (this was the first real improvement)..and so on.
When I thought I fixed it, the audio improved for a short period of time but then soon gradually lost its focus and clarity.. and back to square one. It's like something in the electricity shifts but quickly returns back into place.
Changing the location of my PC improved the audio and the improvement lasts.. but didn't completely fix it.

The second improvement that has helped (not completely fixed) immensely: an extension cord that does not have the metal grounding tabs on the sides. An ungrounded extension cord that cost 4€, and then plugged both my PC and monitor in it to an ungrounded outlet.
Whatever it was/is, the ground tabs must have allowed something to constantly flow between my PC and monitor grounds but nowhere for it to go. Now the PC and monitor grounds are floating (not connected to any other ground/appliance ground) and only share the live and neutral.
(Not an electrician, feel free to laugh)

But as it says at the top of this post, it's not fixed all the way. The audio still sounds quite muddy and I feel like it can still be improved, but it's definitely clearer and more in focus than before after the second improvement.

After having gone through all that, this is my conclusion:
It is my old European 70s-built apartment itself (and a type of interference radiating inside it, causing this all).
It took me ages to figure it out, but there is some type of interference that is at its strongest near my apartment's windows and TV coax outlet corner area in my living room. I have moved my desk and PC as far away from it as I could, but it's still not enough.

To confirm my suspicion, I tried plugging my headphones into my phone to completely disconnect from my apartment's electricity, then continuously and carefully listened to music while walking back and forth between my living room and bathroom: the audio quality changed between worst (near the windows), and best (in the bathroom). How ridiculous is that sentence?

Your issue is kinda same that i have…
Can you more discribe building you live in.
How many apartments are there,
how many entrance in the building if there is multiple entrance more than 2? (by entrance i dont mean back door)
What about lift is there or no?