Topic: Oled Switch Audio Quality Changed

Audio quality has changed in my Switch while playing Pokémon Scarlet. The console sound has gone from surprisingly decent to flat and low and has also affected the sound quality going to my tv in docked mode in a similar manner. This has happened once before while playing BOTW a couple of months ago, it went away after I didn't use if for a few days, there may have been a console update when I picked it up again, I can't exactly remember. I've tried other games, namely BOTW and SSBU, both games also sound flat. Am I going crazy? does anyone here know of a problem like this? I posted this on reddit as well but haven't received a reply.

The most glaring example of the difference is the sound coming from Skeledirge when it uses flamethrower, it used to have a blowhorn like sound that was very prominent when using the move, now it's still there but very quiet. Other sounds, from menus for example, seem to be unaffected, they might be a bit quieter... hard to tell. It seems like a firmware issue, but I can't find a way to fix it. Any ideas?

P.S - the only thing I havent tried is a system initialize, I put 30 hours into pokemon scarlet and don't want to lose my save. is there any way to back-up my pokemon save?

tldr - sound quality is worse in all instances, happened before, went away but not this time.

@prose19 That's the first I've heard of that that issue. Recently, I could have sworn there was a way to initialzed the console without affecting save data. It might be a maintanence mode thing - I think Nintendo support page has directions for that somewhere. But if nothing ends up working, I've got a feeling it may be a failing hardware issue, but it's just a guess. I'd rather you don't have to fix or replace the console.

Otherwise, I think you'll want to contact nintendo tech support if nintendo's support page directions/troubleshooting can't resolve it. Since I joined here in 2017, when nintendo support page can't resolve something, that's seems to be a fairly reliable sign that there's hardware failure.

@prose19 Here it is.

Initialize Switch without deleting save data.
https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a...

Appreciate the help woomy, there's an update. I was playing BOTW earlier just to see if the ganon fight sounded weird and it did... skip to the credits and the sound quality changed back to normal mid song I could actually hear the change, sounded like a burp. I'm not insane lol. I'll just play the console until it fails, It's under warranty until september.

Edit - Still going to try the initialize.