I don't understand...

[Lunar_Lamp]

My sister has 2 cheapo speakers - but there is a problem with sound in that sound only appears to come out of one of them properly. So I plugged mine in there, and they have the same problem. The sound just appears to be missing certain parts - it's hard to describe. Vocals for example seem to be very quiet non-existant in places in some tracks. And sound in one speaker is a lot quieter than in the other.
I think it might be an issue with the motherboard as she is using onboard sound. Unfortunately, I know nothing about sound type issues, and don't have a sound card laying aroung to swap into it to test for sure what it is.

I also haven't a clue what information you guys would need to work out what was wrong - so please feel free to ask questions as I really want to get this sorted out.

[Lunar_Lamp]

Ok, after a bit more investigation - it seems that it is the front left speaker that doesn't work.

My sister has 2 speakers, with 1 jack. The 2 speakers are connected together - when Jack Sensing loads after putting the speakers in, and I click the left front speaker icon to test, it comes out MUCH quieter than the right speaker.
When I use my surround soud set-up with 2 jacks in - I get the same issue on her pc. So I would guess that this is some kind of software problem with outputting the signal to the left front speaker?

[Outlaw Wizard]

it might be in the confingeration of the sound card . on some sound card you can tell the sound card how far the speaker is form you it then adjust the volume to equlize the sound together . you might try the enviremental setings and see if this is hapening . it could also be the plug is not making good contact when you plug it in on that one channel .

[ghettocomp]

Or your sound card could be losing a channel. Try moving the sound card to another comp and see what happens from there. Unless it is built into the Mobo...

[Edo]

Check the balance of the speakers .. it might be slightly off or something. Depending on what type the card is there might be a few places in where you can change/check this.

[Lunar_Lamp]

It turned out to be a problem with the front panel connections to the motherboard. The sound card is built into the motherboard, and when I hooked up the audioports in the front of the computer to the motherboard, I put in one of the wires the wrong way around (I will plead that they were very confusingly labelled i.e. the "+" wire for one of the signals was labelled as "-"). For some reason this caused the above problem - switching the wires around solved the problem and it caused no damage.

[Edo]

lol .. sometimes the smallest things cause the biggest problems!

[Lunar_Lamp]

Indeed they do! It's always something simple in the end!