faint tapping when there should be audio from speakers

Hello,

similar issue to https://www.dell.com/community/Laptops-General-Read-Only/XPS-13-dropped-audio-issues/td-p/5092638 , my dell XPS 13 2015 speakers no longer play audio, and only give a faint tapping noise from the speakers where there used to be music. As per the DELL moderator in the above issue, I tried opening the case and re-seating the audio cable, with no benefit. 

Any additional troubleshooting steps? How do I repair my dell XPS audio? 

Headphone jack works fine, so i suspect the digital2analog component is working fine. Perhaps this is just a design flaw from dell :(