Thank you all for your offering help, but I just discovered something
interesting:

I was listening through the Dec Talk's headphone jack, and had no problem.
When I was listening through the speaker, it fuzzed out, but instead of
panicking, I stuck the headphone jack back in and found that it was
talking just fine.

I am concluding that the problem is rather superficial, having to do with
the speaker. I intend to do a bit of fidgeting, but if anybody knows
something specific about this, please help.

Thanks.

Peter Seymour