NS3 drop in sound quality - from HQ to crappy MP3 sound

[Bl00dyWellRight]

Dear Nord keyboard enthousiasts !

I've had a NS3 for the past 3 years, beautiful machine overall and no issues whatsoever,

BUT, yesterday while playing with my headphones, sound suddendly dropped in quality from the very HQ sound we're all used to, to a very low quality MP3 (lack of bass, and not much on the higher side of the spectrum).

For troubleshooting, I've :

> tested to plug in my monitor, same issue

> tested my Headphones on other devices > Headphones works perfect

> switched on & off again my NS3, same issue

> All the sound engines (Organ, Piano, Synth) are impacted


Have you encountered a similar issue ? and above all, did you found a solution ?

I'm thinking something around the fuze or an electrical issue could have altered the sound quality, but no clue where to look at,


Many thanks for your insightful ideas or experiences !


Cheers

[maxpiano]

Hello and welcome to NUF

Strange thing, did you maybe engage the Mono button? If not maybe reinstalling the OS is a thing to try (even if does not make a lot of sense, to me)

[be lee vit]

Hello! Some people have reported trouble using a 1/8 to 1/4 headphone adapter. If you’re using one of those try swapping that out with another one. I wasn’t sure what you meant by “tested to plug in my monitor”…maybe you’ve already tried this.

[cphollis]

I would suspect a dirty headphone jack, defective headphones, or similar. Try wiggling the headphone jack while it's plugged in. Mine got dirty and I had to clean it out with a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol.

[analogika]

If the bass disappears and all you’re hearing is thin strands of high-end on pianos, and somewhat more on organs and synths, the problem is likely that the stereo out is being shorted to mono, with one output being inverted in phase. This causes all center signals (including bass) to cancel out, and only the differences between left and right channels to remain audible.

The cause of this, in als most all cases, has been a batch of defective cheap 1/4”-to-minijack headphone plug adapters.