This widget could not be displayed.
This widget could not be displayed.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

USB-C Headphones Bug - Internal Noise Cancellation?

luke_chasteen
Star I
I just received my Zenfone 8 yesterday, and for the most part I'm loving the experience. However, I've encountered a really bizarre audio bug that I can't seem to fix with built-in settings.
I use a set of Google Pixel USB-C buds as my primary headphones for everything, including my PC. Never had any issues with them on any other device. And in fact, they work fine on the Zenfone 8 as well, but for some odd reason, select applications (namely, games) get some weird audio filtering ONLY when using USB-C audio. The effect is your typical noise cancellation—audio comes through in mono while background SFX and music are filtered out to near silence.
This is obviously not correct and I'm honestly not sure why you'd ever want this on internal audio. Since it happens exclusively in games, I tried disabling Game Genie and messing around with the Game audio profile, but nothing I tried had any impact. Although, I did discover that if I run games in split screen, the audio filtering stops as soon as a second app has focus. But then, tap back into the game and the filtering returns.
3.5mm headphones and non-game apps do not have the same issue.
I am running the latest system update which was just released.
Really hope this can be patched!
2 REPLIES 2

Gustav_ASUS
Community Legend III
@luke.chasteen Let me know which games and I'll try to reproduce this on my device.

luke_chasteen
Star I
It happens to me in every game, but here are a few examples:
Stumble Guys - Quick example to get into and test. Background music begins audible, then gets cancelled to near silence after 1-2 seconds, like the noise cancellation is calibrating itself.
Honkai Impact 3rd - Extreme example. Game intro starts in an elevator with a sound effect that gets picked up as white noise and filtered out almost entirely. Proceeding into the menu is also extremely filtered. Volume must be near max to hear anything at all.
Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact - Mainstream examples. Background music is noticeably filtered out on entry.
Thanks for looking into this!