Sound Distortion iMac 2007

I just noticed my iMac was distorting music, movies and even some system sounds are sounding "hollow" and have a sort of echo. I have successfully reproduced the distortion on a Logitec 2.1 sound system as well as the standard iMac speakers and headphones. The distortion happens at all sound levels of system and program volume. My extremely limited computer hardware experience tells me that my sound card might be bad, but I would hate to go and buy a replacement only to have the same problem after the thinning of my wallet. I am not sure how relevant a description of the sound might be, but for those of you who used to be Winamp users, it sounds like your music did when the preamp slider was turned up too high on the EQ bar.
Of course my AppleCare expired last month right before I noticed this problem. All I can think about is the term "planned obsolescence," and it is really making my blood boil.
Alternate hypotheses - I have had SRS iWOW as well as the program "Hear" installed but they never caused any trouble when I was using them but I had wondered if they might have corrupted some sort of system files dealing with the sound output. I have since uninstalled them both and restarted the computer but there has been no change in the sound.
Also, I am a noob to the forums here and I hope that I got the right forum to post this. My apologies if this should be somewhere else.

Have you done a SMC or PRAM reset? If not that's a good place to start, if you don't know how here are the directions:
_SMC RESET_
• Shut down the computer.
• Unplug the computer's power cord.
• Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
• Release the power button.
• Attach the computers power cable.
• Press the power button to turn on the computer.
_PRAM RESET_
• Shut down the computer.
• Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
• Turn on the computer.
• Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
• Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
• Release the keys.
Post back with what happens.
Regards,
Roger

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