Having issues with audio quality when I play it through my Focusrite Audio Interface

Main Problem

I have a USB audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2nd-gen) for headphones. When I play audio through my audio interface, It sounds like a chip tune song or like an 80s video game. This is what It sounds like

To be clear there is nothing wrong with my Audio Interface or my headphones I tested it on windows. It works just fine.

Other

This problem doesn't exist when I change the output device.

2 Answers

I had the same problem with my Scarlett 2i2 on Ubuntu 20.04, this worked for me:

1. Open /etc/pulse/daemon.conf with your text editor, example: sudo nano /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
2. Find the lines with default-sample-format and default-sample-rate and remove the ; in front of them. I also had to change the value of default-sample-rate to 48000 from 44100. I left the value of default-sample-format as s16le. Save and exit.
3. restart pulseaudio with pulseaudio -k

Having the same problem with ubuntu studio 20.4.4. Oddest thing is that I can plug a a mic or bass guitar and use direct monitor and it plays back normally, but when I use applications like Spotify or my Browser it sounds like you described it.