Help Volume constantly drops

[scully745]

For the last couple of days the volume of any audio I play through my phone (Samsung Galaxy J1 Ace), regardless of what app I'm using whether it's a video or just music, drops by about half for around 10 seconds, returns to normal for around half a second and then drops back down to half again and just continues this in a loop. Pausing and then resuming the video/music seems to fix it for a couple of seconds but then the issue returns. Turning off GPS Location fixed it for a while but a few minutes later the problem returned yet again.
This happens even if the app producing the audio is the only one running (aside from necessary system processes), I've tried disabling SoundAlive which reportedly has issues with apps such as Spotify with no luck and short of doing a factory reset, which I'm not keen on doing, I've pretty much run out of options.
If anyone has run into a similar issue it'd be greatly appreciated

 

[svim]

The first thing I'd try is playing an audio or video file stored on my phone just to confirm the issue isn't actually with my phone's hardware or the app. If that checks out for you, with those inconsistencies you described I'm wondering if it's just a bandwidth issue, is this happening when connected with WiFi or while using mobile data, or both? If you have something like McAfee or similar installed, try disabling (or better yet disable and uninstall) it and see if that solves your problem.