Windows 10: Muffled or muted sound when in call

Whenever I start a call, be it in Skype, Zoom, Discord or Teams, the sound coming from other apps distorts and sometimes it outright mutes. Its been an issue primarily when gaming, but it occurs even with apps like Spotify. When playing, for example, Genshin Impact, the sounds of the environment or the skill effects are muted or muffled, but certain voice sounds come through fine. When playing Valorant I barely hear anything at all and when I play music in Spotify or play a Youtube video only certain sounds come through while most are muted or muffled. As soon as I close the call it comes back

:)

 

Muffled Sound

Hello,

When I open more than one app the sound becomes muffled; for example, I'm listening to music and it sounds normal, but if I open a videogame the sound becomes muffled.

The audio driver is Conexant SmartAudioHD

Also, my headphones don't appear in the sound devices.

Does anyone know any solution?

 

Muffled Sound

1.- It doesn't solve it.

2.- If I pause the music the sound in the game continues muffled.

3.- I've updated the audio driver through the device manager but it continues the same.

4.- Will do.

Also, I should add that if I turn up the song's volume it seems to not muffle the sound from both the videogame and the music as much, but it's still there.

 

Sound won't come back after muting


Problem:

Plugging headphones (Sound plays) -> Muting -> Unmuting -> Sound doesn't play anymore

Fix (No restart required)

Sound doesn't play -> Mute (with headphones in) -> Unplug headphones ->Unmute (with headphones out) -> Mute (with headphones out) -> Plug headphones -> Unmute (with headphones in).

This is the shortest pattern I could find. Important to follow step by step. It might not work because I have no idea why it works on my end (without starting conspiracy theories about boolean variables being out of sync on the audio driver, which would be the most embarassing thing ever for whoever wrote these drivers).