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.

  • cashy57B
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    1 year ago

    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?