Crosstalk, audio right and left channels

Hello. It's not a feature that I have ever heard of.

How are you getting the signal into the laptop? If it's through the combo audio port, the mic input there is mono, to the best of my knowledge, which might be causing the issue.

You only get the crosstalk with the tone, but not when playing an audio file that has audio in only one channel?

I am using a sound editor (Sony Sound Forge) to create the file.  I get cross talk if I play only one channel with the sound editor.  I get the crosstalk if I play the file with Windows Media Player.

If I play thought the laptop speakers, it seems that I do not get the crosstalk.  If I select "speakers" for the jack, I get less crosstalk than if I select "headphones".

I copied the file onto my old Lenovo laptop running XP, and do not get any crosstalk.  When  I play the file on my Android phone, I don't get any crosstalk.

You could try switching from the Realtek audio driver to the Windows native audio driver, to see if the Realtek driver is causing the fault.

Other than that, all I can think of is to use a usb audio jack or usb headphones. In either case, the Windows usb audio driver would route the digital signal to the device, where it would be converted to analog, thereby bypassing whatever in the Realtek audio system is causing the fault.

I get cross talk if I play only one channel with the sound editor.

With all audio files, or just the timing file?

I have an Inspiron 5000 with the same issue, I am using DJ software that splits the output into left and right channels, I have used the suggested above selecting the windows driver in the  software itself and although slightly better, its is still bleeding across the channel

Just a thought, Could it be the actual socket on the laptop itself? i.e. the contacts not being set correctly and crossing the contacts

Could it be the actual socket on the laptop itself?

When I told tomdozier it was not I feature I had heard of, I forgot about the advanced algorithms in the Waves software. Some of the psycho-acoustical tricks do include a sophisticated form of crosstalk in the speakers. Just thought I would mention that, but I doubt it has anything to do with crosstalk in the headphones. Even if it does it shouldn't happen with the Windows native audio driver.

A way to test for hardware problems is to download and install Linux Live onto a flash drive, then boot the laptop into Linux from that drive. When you test with Linux you eliminate Windows and all Windows-related drivers as the culprit. If the issue is there in that OS and in Windows, then probably hardware -- possibly a fault with the headphone jack.