so this is a strange issue. I can hear people talk when they are off to one side and they voice comes out loud and clear out of the appropriate speaker, however, when they are standing right in front of me the volume goes way down and I can barely hear them at all (like my character is hard of hearing or something. when I click on someone to start a personal conversation the voice volume goes mute and I hear nothing.

this was without any mods installed. then I installed the UOP, Unofficial mods patch and USIP and the problem persists. I have my volume controls maxed out for voices and master volume is maxed out as well. I am on a new win7 64 bit machine.

has anyone had this issue before or know how to fix it?

sorry to bother everyone, I found the issue already. for some reason at some point my sound card settings switched from 2.1 stereo to 7.1 stereo and it thought I had a center speaker. I changed it back to 2.1 and everything is all good to go.

sorry for taking up space on forums...