I am having issues with my audio on Ubuntu 12.04, I will try and give as much detail as possible so sorry if there's too much detail.

The Problem

• Audio plays from both speakers and headphone regardless of what connector I choose and regardless of the profile I use.
• The microphone is constantly being played through headphones & speakers.
• The headphone audio is extremely quiet but plays from both ears when I select "Headphones" for the connector in Sound Settings.
• The headphone audio only plays from one ear and is quiet (but not as quiet as above) when I select "Analogue Output" for the connector in Sound Settings.

I can only select "Headphones" as the connector in Sound Settings if I set the profile to either "Analogue Stereo Output/Duplex", all others only allow me to choose "Analogue Output" for the connector.

Despite the headphone sound issues, the speaker sound is fine apart from the fact that I am not able to select which output is used, they just both play.

My headphone and microphone are plugged into the front and my speakers are plugged into the back.

What I have tried

I have put everything in alsamixer to 100 apart from "Front Mic Boost" which I have set to 0.

Command Output

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD198x Digital [AD198x Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD198x Headphone [AD198x Headphone]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
  Subdevices: 2/3
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2

cat /proc/asound/cards

 0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xf7ff8000 irq 70

cat /proc/asound/modules

0 snd_hda_intel

cat /proc/asound/card*/codec* | grep "Codec"

Codec: Analog Devices AD1989B

cat /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

# autoloader aliases
install sound-slot-0 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-0
install sound-slot-1 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-1
install sound-slot-2 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-2
install sound-slot-3 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-3
install sound-slot-4 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-4
install sound-slot-5 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-5
install sound-slot-6 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-6
install sound-slot-7 /sbin/modprobe snd-card-7

# Cause optional modules to be loaded above generic modules
install snd /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-ioctl32 ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }
#
# Workaround at bug #499695 (reverted in Ubuntu see LP #319505)
install snd-pcm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-pcm-oss ; : ; }
install snd-mixer /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-mixer $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-mixer-oss ; : ; }
install snd-seq /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-seq $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-oss ; : ; }
#
install snd-rawmidi /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-rawmidi $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq-midi ; : ; }
# Cause optional modules to be loaded above sound card driver modules
install snd-emu10k1 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-emu10k1 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-emu10k1-synth ; }
install snd-via82xx /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-via82xx $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist snd-seq ; }

# Load saa7134-alsa instead of saa7134 (which gets dragged in by it anyway)
install saa7134 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install saa7134 $CMDLINE_OPTS && { /sbin/modprobe --quiet --use-blacklist saa7134-alsa ; : ; }
# Prevent abnormal drivers from grabbing index 0
options bt87x index=-2
options cx88_alsa index=-2
options saa7134-alsa index=-2
options snd-atiixp-modem index=-2
options snd-intel8x0m index=-2
options snd-via82xx-modem index=-2
options snd-usb-audio index=-2
options snd-usb-caiaq index=-2
options snd-usb-ua101 index=-2
options snd-usb-us122l index=-2
options snd-usb-usx2y index=-2
# Ubuntu #62691, enable MPU for snd-cmipci
options snd-cmipci mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388
# Keep snd-pcsp from being loaded as first soundcard
options snd-pcsp index=-2
# Keep snd-usb-audio from beeing loaded as first soundcard
options snd-usb-audio index=-2

Hopefully I have provided enough information, I will happily provide anymore information needed. Thank you.

Update

Reinstalling alsa-base and pulseaudio fixed the headphone issues I was having.