2. headphones
  3. 159770-150676

What headphone failure would cause no dialog on a laptop?

I have many headphones including cheap ones and high end ones.  Sometimes they are used with laptops and chromebooks.  Recently, my Tascam TH-03 has started behaving weirdly and I want to know what causes this:

When plugged into a Windows 10 laptop to watch movies (Netflix, Amazon Prime, or any movie) I hear the soundtrack perfectly loud and in stereo but absolutely no dialog.  (I am NOT talking about the common problem of movies made with loud background music.)  If my kid plugs it into a chromebook to use Zoom, there is no sound.  System sounds come through fine.  These headphones didn't use to have this problem, and none of the other headphones do this on the same machines.  Could a cable problem or intermittent jack wiring problem cause this?  Why?
jlwagner
jlwagner OP
3 posts
 
But then why would this happen with only this pair of headphones and no other pairs? 

Is there something that could get screwed up in the headphone's wiring that the laptop would miss-recognize as something that would make the laptop change its output behavior? 
jlwagner OP
3 posts
 
Let me be clearer: The same thing happens when I plug these headphones into my smartphone. No dialog on Netflix etc. Just like I  indicated earlier with my reference to my kid's Chromebook.

It is definitely something in the headphones not the device.  
wlutke
733 posts
 
Cold solder on the ground lug creating a hi-pass filter?  
jlwagner OP
3 posts
 
Could a high pass filter strip a beautiful sounding soundtrack of its dialogue without the music missing any lows?  I don't think so. But I could test this by taping over the ground rings of the plugs on other headphones to see if they then lose dialog. 
More to discover