i'm actually finally making some progress in figuring this out.

it was perfect. for a few minutes. the subbass cleared. the highs were crystalline. just as i remembered it. exciting.

however, by the time i got to the end of the sequence, the highs were starting to fade. the subbass stayed gone, and hasn't come back, but because the music is guitar oriented it can't cut out at 2000 hz. it's where all the tone is. it's keenly important...

i started thinking i mixed it a little dull. that's fine. i just have to establish that consistency, then i can adjust. but, when i restarted the sequence, it was dull again.

so, it seemed as though i was losing the high end over time. could i test this?

i switched cards for a minute to get a base signal, and then i put a single section on repeat.

as the section repeated, it faded from the perfect, crystalline sound i want to your typical am radio hip-hop garbage. but, it was a long section and hard to really hear directly.

i zoomed in to just a snare drum and repeated.

with the snare drum on repeat, it became audibly obvious. it began to fade from a nice tight snare to a loose, open mess. and, i was able to repeat this. directly through the mixer, with nothing in between.

this goes back to a driver problem, i believe. i suppose it could be a resistance issue, in theory - it could be overloading and turning down. but the fact that i'm able to get around it by eqing the mix makes that seem unlikely, as i'd still be overloading it and it would still turn down. i can test this by sending something directly through the device, bypassing the drivers.

the fact that it's predictable seems to rule out magnetic interference - for now. i would expect something more random. if i get more random behaviour, it will reassert interference.

but, finding a way to create the problem and test it and have repeatable results is a big breakthrough.

if it's drivers...it doesn't make sense, really. it's never done this before. i just reinstalled. i suppose i can try an updated driver set, but i picked this driver set for a reason. ultimately, i can't really make sense of it. i don't really care right now. i just want to fix it.

the thing is, though, that it often doesn't turn on to the clear sound i'm getting right now. i'm isolating what i'm hearing as a decay around 10,000 Hz. but it's only an aspect of the problem.