Sudden Loud and Noisy Audio in Headphones When Using OBS with Another App

[thisismynamelalala]

Hi everyone,

I'm encountering a strange audio issue when using OBS Studio.

Whenever I open OBS together with another application that plays audio, the sound in my headphones suddenly becomes extremely loud and noisy. I've already made sure that:

• Audio monitoring in OBS is set to "Monitor Off"
• The microphone is disabled
• The only audio source in OBS is desktop audio, which is set to my headphones

Here's the odd part:
The recorded video sounds completely fine — no noise, normal volume.
But the real-time playback in my headphones becomes unbearable when OBS is running.

Does anyone know what could be causing this and how I can fix it?

Thanks in advance!