Garbled sound through headphone jack
I'm trying this again since for some reason my original post was marked as spam and removed after I provided all relevant details about the affected TV. Aside from that, I also have more information ...
Forum Discussion
This is a guess but sounds to me like the standard audio cable has a problem. It maybe disconnecting for fractions of a second at a time. You can test this by slowly turning or "jiggling" the plug that goes into the TV. If that results in static or messed up sound, The speakers audio plug could be shot. The plug is difficult or impossible to change. Other than that some try some basic trouble shooting. Try plugging something you know is OK into the TV. If that works, your speakers have a problem. If the known good does the same as before the TV is the problem. Hope this helps.
@ mop_891 Thanks - that's what I thought at first as well (problem with speaker connection), but further testing indicates that's not the case.
The garbling happens only with broadcast, over-the-air television. It is not a problem with streaming channels. I tried other speakers connected to the headphone jack with the same results. As mentioned, if the speakers are connected to the optical audio output there is no problem, however since that output is always on full volume and is not controlled by the remote it's not really a solution.
Wiggling the speaker connector around while connected to the TV's headphone jack does not trigger the problem. In fact I just now tried it on a streaming channel, tugged at it pretty hard, and the audio did not skip a beat.
Although it may be coincidental it is suspicious that this issue started immediately after the TV was updated to firmware version version 13.0.0 (build 24062) on June 7th.
Louis_Nenda You are making me think! (joke). Yeah it very well could be the 13.0 update is messed up. So, if audio is OK thought optical, the audio is getting there OK. My guess, since it is only broadcast, I check you TV antenna and everything that goes with it. Could be as simple as a loose connection somewhere. check starting at the back of the TV. OK, tool time, You'll need a 7/16th inch open end wrench. That fits The connectors. Gently, turn the wrench clockwise. If it moves at all, connection might be loose. Loose connections on today TV signals can do strange things. It's what I'd do in your situation.
The television's firmware was updated this morning to version 13.1.4, build 1505. This appears to have fixed the garbled audio problem. Changing channels and pausing live TV quite a few times after the update did not result in the symptom, which only yesterday was happening practically every time a channel was changed or pause resumed.
This was a really bizarre problem since only headphone jack output was affected, and only antenna broadcasts. Like most modern devices instead of having a simple mechanical switch in the headphone jack itself the TV's audio is probably routed via software, which opens up a rats nest of possibilities for strange and obscure bugs.
