Question / Help Bad audio with 7.1 Logitech Headset, Need A Solution Other Than Disabling Surround Sound

[Deioth]

OBS audio in streams/recordings with my Artemis G933 sounds quiet and as if it is in an empty room with a slight hollow echo. Every fix I can come across seems to suggest the solution is disabling the headset's surround sound. This works, however, the problem is that my hearing is very sensitive to sound I only hear out of one ear. I can't listen to certain music via earbuds on my phone or through my car stereo because there's no way to mix the sound across all channels and "even" it out. I need to play games with the G933's surround sound active. I'm hoping some folks might have some solutions. For the record, the optional DTX Headphone setting is not on, it sounds like crap.

A possible solution that I have no clue how I'd implement would be if I could mirror output into a second audio device, one that can downmix to stereo without sounding like a an empty room, and have OBS listen to that device. Is this something that would possibly work and, if so, does anyone know how I could go about doing that? I'm on Windows 10 Home. If I could mirror output to my motherboard's built in RealTek audio that would suffice, I have a 5.1 speaker system utilizing it and it sounds great.

 

[Deioth]

Update: I've tried two possible remedies, no real luck with either.

First, I've tried utilizing Stereo Mix, but I cannot for the life of me get it working with my USB headset which seems to be a common issue. I've been unable to track down a proper resolution to this.

Second, I gave a shot to this program Voicemeeter, but unfortunately the delay it causes is intolerable. It works perfectly, OBS stream/recording sounds great now, but all system/game sounds are delayed a split second and it is extremely noticeable and off putting.

Really hoping someone out there has a good solution to this issue. I use Logitech with the 7.1 surround because it sounds best to me, but OBS simply won't mix its audio well.

 

[Harold]

Because of how headsets like your logitech do their surround, the ONLY way to get them to play nice with OBS is by turning off their surround functions.

 

[Statdk]

I've found a potential solution that will probably work long term, but I'm not sure how long of a delay it causes. From my 5 minutes of testing it seems fine, though I would only leave it set up while intending to record.

From the same group that made Voicemeeter I found a virtual audio cable (https://www.vb-audio.com/Cable/). It does the same thing as attaching an actual cable directly from the computer's output to input, OP would probs know because voicemeeter comes with one permanently attached.

Setting it up after installation is simple:

1. Open the audio device control panel
2. Set the default audio playback to CABLE Input
3. Go to the recording tab then right click and open the CABLE Output properties
4. Open the Listen tab then check the "Listen to this device" box
5. Just below that, set the "Playback through this device" to your Headphones/Speakers. You should now be able to hear your audio like normal.

IMPORTANT: In your recording software, set the system audio input to the CABLE Output.
Some software's system input is unchangeable, though from my testing it just uses the default output (now your cable)

This also allows you some extra control over which application's audio stream is sent to the recording software through the cable. Just play with the individual application's audio outputs to get it.


Hopefully this helps, definitely solves the issue of latency, but is a little weirder to set up and use.

 

[mixiell]

OMG! You solved my issue! I have litterally been troubleshooting this issue for 2 days >.<
Im about to paste your comment in all forums i found just to spread the word! >.<