Sim voice audio extremely low quality

there's a really low quality to the voices in this rerelease that wasn't present in the original game. it sounds like the voice files were run through an audio cruncher and had their quality dropped as low as they could go. it feels like i'm listening to them speak through a phone. there's an echo effect to the voices too, and the audio almost constantly peaks which makes it almost unbearable to listen to

the voice files in the sims 2 have always been high quality, and no, it's not me 'misremembering' because of nostalgia. the last time i played the original version was a few months ago, they've never sounded like this