no, it's the same weird shit. grargh. well, at least it's clear, now.

if i open foobar on the laptop while there is no open stream in youtube, i get exactly the same blunted sound i'm getting on the recording pc. but, if i open it while there is an open stream (or i open a stream while it's open), it snaps back to the right sound.

so, it's like it can't load the drivers right, but if something else loads the drivers for it then it knows what to do.

keep in mind that this is subtle. i previously just thought it was inherent hardware differences.