The stereo sound starts much too early. It begins to take extremely noticeable effect when the sound source isn't exactly in front of the player.
The player can be looking at the corner of the block they place and hear the side overwhelming in that respective ear.
Linked issues
duplicates 1
Comments 2
Duplicate of MC-121364 (see there for a workaround)
Unfortunately, this is not a bug in Minecraft itself, but a bug in a library Minecraft uses.
Niknokinater
I have a similar problem, I get no audio in my centre speaker but in 1.12.2 I do.