I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with my Chaintech AV710 + HD590's for a while now.

I'm running out of the Wolfson DAC, standard HD590 cord, no amp or anything.

However, I have this weird problem - the vocals sound rather "washed out" so to speak. However, if I -slightly- disconnect the HD590 cord, for some reason, it causes the sound to jump into focus and the vocals sound right.

I did not have this problem with the AC97 DFI Lanparty Audio, and I followed the instructions given on the AV710 setup guide to the letter, including on how to setup Foobar2k.

Any ideas on the problem? A fix would be greatly appreciated.

a corroded jack/bad contact is problem the cause of the problem.

A corroded jack?

On which? The headphones or the AV710?

And what is the easiest way to fix that little problem?

Also, considering the AV710 is brand new as of a few days ago, that sounds awfully surprising....

since your phones work ok with other cards, i'd think the problem is with the jack in the card... but since you said it's new, i don't think moisture's done its work yet. more like faulty contact between the plug and the jack. have you tried with another pair of phones?

This persists across multiple headphones.

Oddly enough, if I slightly unseat the jack, it improves volume a bit with the headphones, and makes vocals go from "washed out, background" to sharp, in focus.

Is this something related to the jack on the AV710?

Should I swap it from the Wolfson DAC to the standard headphone jack, and see if the problem still persists?

yeah, try that; your descriptions suggest that the jack itself isn't contacting with the plug somehow.

Actually, that sounds about right.

-goes to fiddle with the plug-

If I put enough force on it to force it to contact the top side of the jack, everything springs out in perfect clarity.

And the clarity is a whole lot better then anything I've heard on these before.

So it's not making proper contact with the jack, right?

All that I'm using is the standard 3.5mm stock plug with the HD590's, so...I don' think it's that, especially since it has this problem on another pair of earbuds, and the Sennheiser's don't have the problem on a different source.

since the same problem occurs with different phones, it's definitely a problem with the jack on the card. go get a replacement.