take a set of ear buds (that typically come with a portable player) and plug them into the headphone jack on the side of the control pod beneath the right speaker. do you hear both L&R channels? next, plug jack into sound card speaker output. do you hear both channels? if you do hear both at sound card but not at control pod, the preamp is not working properly. new pods are backordered by Klipsch from their vendor in China (since early September)- if you bought speakers through an Ebay merchant, you might want to return them and try another brand/model.