Wired headphones produce a small and continuous hiss while the Deck is powered on. Hiss is very soft in volume, and increases in volume whenever any action is done (whether scrolling or highlighting a button, even if action doesn’t produce a UI sound).
My headphones: sony wh-1000xm5
How to reproduce:
- Plug-in headphone and cable. Leave headphones powered off.
Where/when this issue DOESN’T occur:
- When headphones are plugged into my Steam Deck LED model in the same manner
- When headphones are used with bluetooth
- When headphones are powered on (regardless whether Active Noise Cancellation is on or off)
In desktop mode, changing audio profile from “SOF Vangogh” to “Off” eliminates the hiss. Hiss remains missing when profile change is reverted, though only up until a UI sound activated the Audio Coprocessor. Of course, this isn’t a true solution.
This video contains audio of ambient noise as a reference. https://streamable.com/6ay1w8
This video captures audible hiss. Mic from phone is pointed toward headphone ear cup. https://streamable.com/77mevx
I should also mention that the hiss appears to correlate with UI movement. Note the following:
- Hiss is constant
- Hiss increases in volume when cursor floats above element.
- Hiss increases in volume when pop-up element appears
- Hiss returns to base volume when cursor doesn’t move
- Hiss, again, increases in volume when pop-up element expires and fades out
- Hiss, again, returns to base volume after fade-out animation ends
Please let me know if anyone of you have this issue as well.
So don’t use wired headphones. Got it.
Contact Steam Support, this is definitely something that can be fixed through software
Sounds like a headphone jack grounding issue.pretty common
a ground loop isolator would fix it if that’s the case.
OG Switches had the same issues.I would check for you, but I’m still waiting on my Oled to show up
that’s bad then, there’s a ton of ppl reporting this issue.
I have had this issue with my 1000xm3’s on just about any audio source that is wired. They’re not a great experience wired because the wired connection bypasses a lot of the processing the headphones do by default when wireless. I am unsure if this is true for the XM5’s. Have you tried other wired sources?
I got my 512GB unit yesterday and immediately noticed the problem. The ground noise is unnacceptably high and varies between menus, in-game, according to the chosen power options, etc.
I just ran a few comparative tests this morning using different headphones to see how bad it is:
- Hyperx Cloud II: the ground noise is very noticeable at all times. It’s even more prevalent in the Steam Library than in-game but it never goes away.
- Moondrop Quarks (IEM): the most noticeable of all, given the higher sensitivity. Unusable for anyone who cares even a little bit about clean audio.
- Sennheiser HD 598SR: my oldest and most-used pair, usually slightly sensitive. The SD’s ground noise is a little less intense VS the previous two but still very noticeable and not acceptable. Once again, menus somehow show it the worst.
- Sennheiser HD 560S: slightly less noticeable than with the 598. During gameplay in Prey (2017) I can almost forget about it, although it’s still there. Becomes noticeable yet again in menus.
- Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro 250ohm: the only pair which completely hides the issue for me. Not noticeable in-game or in menus. It’s a studio pair with higher impedance and lower sensitivity but it is not representative of a typical consumer-oriented product that most people will be using to play portably.
I am somewhat hopeful that this issue can be mitigated through software. Maybe it’s a voltage control issue with the internal DAC or something of the sort. My LG G7 ThinQ smartphone had a dedicated Quad-DAC with purpose-built “audiophile” internals and it read some audio inputs completely wrong, creating lots of distortion with some headphones and none with others.
I need to know if they plan to address the problem. I am not about to keep an almost 600€ portable device which can’t play well with portable headphones and IEMs.
One final consideration is that I suspect they have the pre-amping on the internal DAC/ Amp way too high. The fact that my Beyerdynamic basically run perfectly and without any lack of volume points to the source gain being way too high for regular, sensitive headphones and IEMs. I really, really wouldn’t want to have to send this back.