Audio monitoring issue with Thinkpad T14

[DonRico1234]

Hi

NORMAL USE CASE WITH ANY OTHER PC:

I've desktop pc where OBS has access to system sound produces by an app ( let say spotify or browser) even when windows sounds are muted. You can verify this by opening windows volume mixer and under OBS you can see vol. levels moving even tho obs is marked as muted. Seems like OBS somehow escaping windows general mute.
It breaks when you unmute and/or re-mute OBS from Volume mixer.
To get it working again you need to unmute everything
Restart obs
And mute all the sounds and OBS will be able to monitor sounds no matter what.

PROBLEMATIC PC:
There is a new Thinkpad T14 with Ryzen 5 and that machine can't ignore system mute as most of the other machines do.
Unmuting OBS from volume mixer changes nothing.

Does somebody have an idea how to trick that machine to listen to audio even when main sound output is muted.

USE CASE:
My friend is trying to record Zoom lectures while he's working and re-play them afterwards tho he can't have hes laptops audio blasting while he's recording.
NB! Pluging in the headphones also stops OBS monitoring audio.

Would be glad if somebody can help, I'm all out of ideas.

 

[DonRico1234]

I believe I have a solution or let's say workaround.

I installed virtual audio device called VB-CABLE https://vb-audio.com/Cable/ and set it as default output device. In that case you don't need to mute anything since nothing is directed to speakers but yet OBS can listen in and record everything from that Audio device.
It needs little bit pre-recording configuration but it's not anything too cumbersome.