Hello, I’ve just received some wired headphones to use with my oled steam deck and I’ve noticed that when no sound is playing I’m getting a faint static noise. It goes away for some reason when I’m on the header section of the library where you go between favourites, great on deck, all games etc…
Also, when navigating the steamOS menu there’s a bit of static noise after the UI sound effect finishes.
I’ve seen a few threads about this from 1-2 years ago but wondered if it’s a recent bug or hardware problem.
The headphones don’t hiss when plugged into my MacBook. Perfectly silent.
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.
You’ve done your research. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed by software as it is a bit annoying. I was playing RE3 and the noise sounded like coil whine and was much more noticeable. Seems to be linked to gpu/cpu intensity of game.