Latest windows update stole some of my system sounds, as well as toggle keys. It also made headphone audio behave very loud and compressed, added slight reverb and only goes back to normal after unplugging and reconnecting headphones.
The update did not touch audio, no Realtek driver was updated, but it's windows, so...
@FreakyFwoof wow those are all strange. I wonder if the general audio-processing-object framework thingy they recently rolled out is not behaving well with your system. It sneakily installed alongside it on my laptop at least. Under audio processing objects. So I suppose Microsoft or partners can update those separate of the base Realtek drivers now. Yay more convolution.