I'm having problem with the sound on my headphones , can anyone help ?

Hello everyone.

I*recently noticed a problem with the sound in my headphones (Kingston HyperX Cloud - the first one) where the sound after I plug in my headphones becomes kinda 'muffled' and a little muted (meaning I barely hear something).

After a little experimentation, I noticed that there is a crackling sound when trying to plug in the headphones in the jack port and that the sound muffling I said above apparently happens when the plug is plugged all the way in, and that the sound is back to normal when I pull the plug*out very*little, but if I do plug it out a little , then I hear static when I'm not doing anything.

I also hear crackle when moving some way*the cable too.

I really tried to see if I can fix my problem through Google, but unfortunately since English is not my native language I was having a bit of difficulty finding the solution.

Some of the things I tried are:
- Plug the headphones in other ports (the headphones were always plugged in the control box here:http://media.kingston.com/support/downloads/Cloud_Headset_UserManual.pdf*(Page 5)), the back port, the front (chassis) port, the problem is still there, but it seems the sound is WAY more muted/muffled with the control box then directly with other ports.
- Tried blowing out the dust from the plug and ports (didn't try the alcohol method yet*where you clean it with very little alcohol both the ports and the plugs) still the same problem.

I really don't know what caused this problem to*appear all of a sudden, it was working normally and great one day and then the next one I find myself dealing with some crackling and muffled noises.

If anyone has any suggestions hopefully you can help me.

If anyone needs any additional information which I might have left out simply ask.

Thanks in forward.

Do you have another computer you can try them on?
It sounds like you have an issue in the headset cable to me, is RMA an option for you?

ATMINSIDE said:

Do you have another computer you can try them on?
It sounds like you have an issue in the headset cable to me, is RMA an option for you?

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Hey ATMINSIDE.

Thanks for the reply.

Well I just tested Maid with the Flaxen Hair and other sample music you get with Windows 7 on my family's laptop and the headphones seem to behave normally and there is noticeable muffle when trying on my PC.

However there is sound change when moving my cable so I'm trying to see is the cable faulty.

I'm going to do more testing to see if the crackle and static sounds are there when trying to move the cable or something.

Ok, I think I was wrong with the sound difference between the laptop and my PC, because the sounds still change when I plug out a little the headphone plug out of its port, this is especially noticeable in Starcraft II.

When the plug is pushed all the way in the sounds that plays when the buttons are pressed (in the main menu of the game) are barely heard, but when I pull the plug a little the sound of the buttons are normal like it should be but then there is this annoying static sound which is like a low pitch buzzing in my ears , it makes me feel uncomfortable .

Any suggestions ?

Thanks.

You're getting a bad connection with the jack on your computer. I'd try getting a short extension cable for the headset (maybe 6" or so) to see if it clears up the issue.

Well I tried wit h the extenstion cable which I got with the headset, but unfortunately still the same problem.

Obviously, there is a problem of some kind with the connection. The headphone plug is not mating properly with the jack.

I provide tech support for a private school and we have used different brands and different models of headphones over the years in our computer lab. We currently are using headphones whose plug is just a smidgen larger in diameter than it should be. It's out of spec just a little. You really have to push hard to get them to engage in the jacks on the computers. It's an obvious difference over the other units we have used and it has resulted in blowing out the front audio ports on the computers in a fairly short time as the students have plugged and unplugged them. My point is that we take it for granted sometimes that all manufacturing processes will be completely uniform when there is a standard. But it's not always so.

By the way, it's perfectly normal to get static and noise when the headphone or speaker plug makes incidental contact with the I/O shield or the computer case.

Thanks trents.

What I don't understand is how does the sound sound so muffled when I plug the headphone plug in the jack all the way, but when I plug it a little bit it sounds normal ?

Is it the headphone plug or the jacks, I think it's the former but everything was working normally until suddenly this happened and I have no idea why.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Try another headphone set and see if it produces the same issues. If it does, then the problem is the PC audio ports. The "muffled" effect could be caused by poor contact. When you pull the plug out a little it makes better contact.

If the problem turns out to be with the computer audio jacks then try one of these usb to headphone adapters: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-1-USB-to-...730832?hash=item2ee04e6990:g:GswAAOSwu4BVt0AP

They work great.

Well I just tested with new headphones in.

I noticed that my front audio jack is kinda messed up , same problem appeared with the new headphones (muffled sound until I pull the plug a little) , but after I tested both my headphones and the new ones, mine still had the same issues while the new ones are working normally.
I also noticed if I move my cable a little the sound kinda clears up, but it's difficult to position it so that I don't get a muffled sound.

Any other suggestions before I decide to RMA these ones ?

Thanks.

bbgun said:

Any other suggestions before I decide to RMA these ones ?

Thanks.

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check to make sure that both 3.5mm jacks are the same. I came across this when troubleshooting a similar trouble a while ago. Maybe others know about this already but, there are different types of 3.5mm jacks (I obviously never knew until I noticed the difference on 2 sets of headphones)

Ummm I cant post pics for some reason so Ill just give the link with the pic https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-convert-red-and-black-speaker-wire-to-a-3-5mm-audio-jack The pic in question is a little ways down and gives an illustration of the difference between the different jacks

Hmm, nice catch.

I actually used my phone headphones and the 3.5mm jacks are not the same.

They are same in a shape but the phone one is kinda very little thinner than the Kingston's one, and the phone one has 3 stripes while my 'main' one has only 2.

But I'm not sure will that make much of a difference , but then again I'm not knowledgeable much on these things and if there is hope for me to save time and money through all this RMA process then I'm glad.

Audio plugs have different numbers of "stripes" to separate the speaker output channels whether mono, stereo, quadraphonic, etc. So each stripe separates or insulates each output channel from the other. Headphones and speaker systems that can utilize more channels will have more "stripes" on the plugs.

bbgun said:

Hmm, nice catch.

I actually used my phone headphones and the 3.5mm jacks are not the same.

They are same in a shape but the phone one is kinda very little thinner than the Kingston's one, and the phone one has 3 stripes while my 'main' one has only 2.

But I'm not sure will that make much of a difference , but then again I'm not knowledgeable much on these things and if there is hope for me to save time and money through all this RMA process then I'm glad.

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the one with 3 strips (according to the link) has a ribbon for a microphone. I honestly couldnt say if that would cause your issue or not though. if you have a third set to try, you would atleast have another set of data to use with the RMA process I cant imagine that your headphones wouldnt work just because they dont have a mic ribbon but crazier things have happened. How to the Kingstons work on your phone?

knoober said:

the one with 3 strips (according to the link) has a ribbon for a microphone. I honestly couldnt say if that would cause your issue or not though. if you have a third set to try, you would atleast have another set of data to use with the RMA process I cant imagine that your headphones wouldnt work just because they dont have a mic ribbon but crazier things have happened. How to the Kingstons work on your phone?

Click to expand...

Same thing it seems happen with my Kingston headphones when testing on my phone.

But now the headphone plug is not the issue here because no matter if I pull it out a little there is no difference , however when I'm moving the cable the sound changes, so maybe it's just the cable that's kinda faulty here since when I was moving the cable while on my PC the sound went back to normal, but I can't put it in a position where it won't break the sound.

Any suggestions if the cable is at fault here ?

bbgun said:

Any suggestions if the cable is at fault here ?

Click to expand...

Replace and/or RMA unless you know how to solder.