Sounds are panned too aggressively to the left or right depending on where the player is facing. For example, if a mob is making a sound, and the player isn't looking directly towards it, the sound will be panned completely to the left or right. This effect is most obvious while wearing headphones.

This issue was pointed out in MC-121364 but that issue was erroneously marked as "Works As Intended" 

fry suggested a workaround by downloading an older version of OpenAL-soft and using a JVM argument, but that causes my game to crash, and a workaround really isn't the best long term solution. 

The list of changes for 1.13-PRE4 mentioned "Updated LWJGL" so I was hopeful that would have solved this issue, but that doesn't seem to be the case, sadly.

The best way to experience this issue is to put a music disc into a jukebox, and look around in different directions, paying attention to how the game handles where to place the sound in the stereo space. I recommend comparing the latest pre-release with 1.12.2, and you should immediately notice a difference. Even walking around, the sound of footsteps on the grass can be panned inappropriately far to the left or right, depending on which direction the player is walking.

Thank you for reading! I hope the team is made aware of this issue so it can be fixed before the final 1.13 release! Keep up the great work!