[1693] Voices are too loud and over-compressed after this update
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Catboy Slim
i am definitely getting overstimulated faster after the new update. voices are a lot hotter and saturated now, it's almost the same effect as clipping but not quite. there is a notable reduction in dynamic range. previously i had my volume at 40, and now i have to turn it down to 30. and even then i still can't handle as many voices at once.
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knah
While I was not a huge fan of voices being overly directional in the previous version, I feel like this version severely over-compensates now. The voices are loud, flat (missing bass?), and very weakly directional. As a result it's way harder to pick out individual conversations even in lightly crowded areas, and in some cases a conversation five meters behind me is louder than someone talking right next to me.
Given that people don't disperse to avoid this, I suspect this is not an issue on live.
The Heavynator
ive also noticed if you look directy at someone while there talking it can sometimes sound like there behind you or inside your head. also lower angles have really poor spatial accuracy too.
RuneFox237
I agree with this post. I had to rely on earmuff mode way more often in various instances where I normally would only rely on it sparingly on Live and not at all on the previous steam audio beta. Voices are almost gratingly loud and flatter, less directional.
RuneFox237
Noticed the same issue that Heavynator is talking about as well, for me it was when talking to someone who was in front of and below my head from my pov as they were lying on top of me while we were watching some videos. I'd rotate my head left and and right slightly and their audio would seem to 'snap' in directionality between ears rather than a smooth transition like you'd expect from such small movements.
StormRel
Merged in a post:
[1693] new HRTF profile far too loud and sharp.
The Heavynator
while the new profile does indeed make voices clearer it also sounds as if all audio has been sent through a high pass filter (mids and bass sound muted) and amplified by quite a bit.
again while this may be fine for voices its quite bad for all other audio, especially more whitenoisey sounds like waterfalls and streams.
this is somthing i myself encounterd while testing diferent .sofa profiles for steam audio in this report (https://feedback.vrchat.com/steam-audio-open-beta/p/1604-hrtf-deadzone-at-low-angles) where most profiles i tried degraded the overall audio quality quite severely and also made things much louder in some cases like whats happening in this update.
i beleve this happens because when the profile is made it also captures the characteristics of whatever mic was used to capture the audio responses, valves default profile is likely modified to preserve sound quality because of this.
I've proveded some comparisons between SAs default profile, VRCs current profile and ONSP. (audio bitrate set to 256)
StormRel
Merged in a post:
[1693] Voice quality significantly downgraded
Rokk
This is a very subjective thing, so it's hard to objectively quantify or "prove", but it feels like the latest Steam Audio beta update (Build 1693) has significantly downgraded the voice quality. I restarted for the update and it feels like night and day.
More specifically, it sounds like the bitrate of voice audio has been cut in half. The only other way I can reproduce the effects of this update is by opening any voip application like Teamspeak, and lowering the bitrate to about 16kbps.
Again, this is a subjective thing so it's very hard for me to say if this is a bug or just a personal subjective effect, but voice quality has gone down a lot in my experience, so I'm making this post as a feedback post.
StormRel
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Plaster
the camera shutter is extremely loud now too
Catboy Slim
i've also noticed world ambient sounds (world: Weald Alpha) are much louder too
Plaster
the decreased dynamic range is definitely something that is affecting the voice clarity for me. the headroom in the audio was very good to have, it's a shame it sounds like the limiter is being pushed just from one person speaking..
Catboy Slim
i am definitely getting overstimulated faster after the new update. voices are a lot hotter and saturated now, it's almost the same effect as clipping but not quite. previously i had my volume at 40, and now i have to turn it down to 30. and even then i still can't handle as many voices at once.