A friend in another group posted the following suggestions to improve audio if you are using YouTube on Zoom:
Hi Everyone:
I have a technical note to share that I have learned from playing many YouTube videos over Zoom.
The quality of sound that reaches your fellow Zoomers is heavily influenced by whether or not you make the following settings on your computer…
- Turn on Original Sound. You have to do this when you launch Zoom before you enter the meeting. If you don’t do this Zoom’s background noise suppression algorithms mess with your music and degrade the sound. Basically, Zoom thinks that any sustained sound is background noise so if you have a held musical note, after a few miliseconds, Zoom thinks it’s background noise and tries to suppress it causing some weird distortions.
This link provides a fuller explanation and demonstrates the effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50NoWIiYECA&t=104s
- When you share your screen to do your presentation, select "share computer audio" on the prompt screen that comes up. If you don’t do this Zoom uses your computer microphone to pick up the sound from your computer speakers and then transmits the microphone signal to your Zoomers. Thus, Zoom will degrade your music by putting it through a second digital to analog audio conversion and back from analog to digital. If you select “Share Computer audio” the original digital audio signal will be broadcast to your Zoomers.
This link provides a fuller explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDCAvnHvZQg