Fix for a sudden lower quality of sound?

I'm having a bit of trouble with the sound on my laptop - a couple of days ago, I had an odd incident where the computer couldn't play music because no output device was selected. During this time, the mute and volume options both on the keyboard and the screen were unresponsive. Restarting the computer fixed the problem, however, I've noticed that the sound quality has changed. Going above volume level 4 is unbearably loud (was not the case before), and the sound itself sounds like its being played from a great distance away. I do listen to my laptop through headphones, since I live in college residence with two roommates, but I'm confident that the headphones are not the problem, since the sound quality on my phone sounds the same. I did upgrade to windows 10 recently, but have not experienced any problems with it until now. Checked the drivers for the speakers and everything's up to date.

Anyone have a fix, or suggestions?