Anybody using LWJGL 2.8.4 with the included OpenAL library ?
Just wondered why sounds are no longer placed correctly in stereo image, sounds snap completely left/right when positioned out of center.
At first I thought I misconfigured some parameters but after rolling back to OpenAL of LWJGL 2.8.3 sounds are placed again as expected.
I also use Paul’s SoundSystem but that shouldn’t matter, I think.
Maybe look at the change logs of LWJGL.
Probably because LWJGL recently switched to OpenAL-Soft.
I’ve never found OpenAL panning to be very reliable. Even before 2.8.4 I would get a very harsh “snap” (on my Mac) when the position would be near center. For reliable and smooth left/right panning you might want to look into a software mixer like TinySound. Another idea, which is more of a hack/workaround (although I have had good results on a couple of machines) is to play the sounds in sync on two different sources, one positioned left of the listener and one positioned right, and then emulate the “panning” by changing their volumes. This lead to a much smoother panning on my machine, but as I said it’s an ugly hack and not a proper solution. 
Why wouldn’t panning work with Paul Lamb Sound Library? Is there a way of using OpenAL-Soft only when OpenAL is not available with LWJGL?
From the information above, its likely an issue related to the new OpenAL-Soft and not a LWJGL one. There was recently a similar bug report on the LWJGL forums and the following reply might be helpful.
Thank you. I hope this bug will be fixed before the OpenALSoft fallback becomes fully usable in JOAL.