Surface 2 Speaker/Sound Problems

My built in speakers didn't work right with any sound source while Bluetooth and wired headphones were great.  I went to support and ultimately was recommended to exchange.  hope the new one works.  My partner got his the same day and same store as mine and still sounds great with built in speakers.  during tech support I had to do backflip for the surface to reinstall the sound drivers.  it kept appearing as an other device with no driver or would appear as installed but bad settings.  but even when forced to see the drivers correctly the speakers still didn't work correctly.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with support.  I hope this helps get this issue escalated.

Nice! Thanks for the initiative. Maybe it will make things move a little.

A little chat with Microsoft this morning;

General Info

Chat start time  Nov 8, 2013 10:06:46 AM EST

Chat end time   Nov 8, 2013 10:46:42 AM EST

Duration (actual chatting time)  00:39:56

Answer Tech     MS Support

Chat Transcript

info: Thank you for choosing Microsoft Surface.  An Answer Tech will be with you shortly.

info: Privacy Statement

You are now chatting with 'MS Support'.

Jon: Hi MS Support.

MS Support: Hi thanks for contacting Surface support, my name is ***, I'll do my best to help.

Jon: Ok, great.

MS Support: Hi Jon, I hope you're having a nice day so far, despite this issue. Sorry to hear about that, so just to confirm when you play music through the Music App, the sound is crackling and distorted right?

Jon: Right, same issue as a lot of Surface 2 owners are having. Check it out here;

Jon: http://answers.microsoft.com/thread/cd2cc7bb-4572-4122-8a57-9843d1a5c366

MS Support: Thanks, I'll just look that up now, has this been going on the whole time you've had the Surface 2?

Jon: No one from Microsoft has replied about this. Restores do not work. Hardware replacements have the same issue.

Jon: Yes.

Jon: Is anyone there working for a solution to this problem?

MS Support: I'm just looking into this now, I'm sure that they're aware of it because of the amount of responses there.

Jon: Well...a 'We're looking into it " response would be nice.

MS Support: I know what you mean, not replying makes it somewhat vague. I'm aslo just trying this now on our in-house Surface 2 just to see if I can recreate this.

Jon: It's simple. Play any Eminem song on xbox music radio full blast with audio enhancements enabled.

MS Support: Funilly enough that's what I tried to do to check it - but I need to verify the account which I can't do - so I had to go for Katy Perry instead - but I could hear some distortion there.

Jon: weird eh? even stranger it doesn't happen with games, like halo, or even movies like Netflix.

Jon: seems to happen with streaming content on some websites, and of course xbox music.

Jon: Everyone seems to agree it's a software issue.

Jon: Did no one notice this during product testing?

Jon: Playing a song was the first thing I did. My excitement when to sadness :(

MS Support: If it's happening to everyone, and even on the Surface 2 we're using here it suggests that it's a widespread issue that's happening to a lot of people, that would need to be resolved with an update or something along those lines - I can't imagine that it was noticed or it would have been taken care of before launch.

Jon: and disappointment.

MS Support: I'm sorry to hear that, it's only happening with the Music App though right, is there anything else you can notice that's affected?

Jon: Umm, like I said it seems to happen on some, not all, streaming content online..like video services...online raidos

MS Support: Thanks, it's really unusual that it would only happen with streaming audio, but not on video, I would have imagined it'd be the other way around. Because the speakers are working for other apps and services, we know it's not the speakers themselves anyway, have you tried to change any of the speaker settings though just out of interest?

Jon: yes, if you display audio enhancements its not as bad...but not as loud either.

Jon: sorry I mean disable, not display

MS Support: Thanks, it's somewhat difficult for me to troubleshoot this here (Just because I'm in a call centre with a lot of people talking on phones around me) and I can't necessarily hear if anything I'm trying is making a difference.

MS Support: So I'm not sure if this will help - but could you go to your desktop, and click on the volume icon in the lower right hand corner of the window please?

MS Support: Then, click on the image of the speaker that appears under "Device."

MS Support: That should open Properties, and under the advanced tab, you have a few options there that you can edit, could you try editing any of those just to see if they help?

Jon: Yes, again the only one that makes any difference is the audio enhancements

Jon: but, the downside is its not as loud anymore :(

Jon: Anyways seems like a driver issue. Can you have this issue escalated please?

Jon: Maybe the software programmers can fix it.

MS Support: Yeah absolutely, I'll send this chat to my manager, who'll make sure it gets to the development department.

MS Support: Along with the link to that post on the Answers forum.

Jon: Also, please have someone respond to the message board. I feel like we spend 500$ and aren't getting any support.

Jon: Great! Thanks!

MS Support: You're welcome, and thanks for being so understanding, I know how frustrating it can be to listen to music of substandard quality.

Jon: :) Have a good day. Thanks again.

MS Support: Take it easy Jon, I hope an update is released to resolve this soon :) You can email yourself this chat, by using the envelope icon in the top left hand corner of this window. Thanks again for contacting Surface support, and have an excellent day, and an even better weekend.

Add one more to the pack.

I love my S2 but sound has issues.

(1) Crackling noise

(2) Low volume

Using headsets is another world. Sounds great.