[MPlayer-users] can't play voice recordings under ubuntu

[Reimar Döffinger]

On 13 October 2019 22:22:17 CEST, stan <gyvoy at q.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 09:52:39 -0700
>Silvio Levy <levy at msp.org> wrote:
>
>> But you're right - it must not be an mplayer problem; I just tried
>VLC
>> with the same results.
>> 
>> Still if you have any suggestions how I can debug it I'd be very
>> thankful.  I'm mystified.
>
>Nothing seems obvious.

Actually I've discovered a pretty simple and common cause for an effect like that a long time ago:
The "ground" connection (the biggest section of the connector) does not make contact, only the left and right stereo contacts do.
As a result, you hear only the difference between left and right stereo channel.
For music that sounds surprisingly close to vocals being filtered out.