Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Is your microphone suddenly sounding muted, robotic, glitchy, over-filtered, or broken in Windows 11? In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to disable the new Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio settings for both your microphone and headset so Windows stops applying extra processing to your sound.
This is especially useful if you already use another background noise removal app, headset driver, broadcast tool, or microphone filter. When Windows 11 audio enhancements are running at the same time as another noise remover, the two systems can fight each other. That can make your microphone sound quiet, clipped, muffled, robotic, or like it is cutting in and out.
Microsoft’s own Windows troubleshooting pages recommend turning off audio enhancements when dealing with distorted, crackling, low, or quiet audio, and the setting is found under Settings then System then Sound, then selecting your device and changing Audio enhancements. Microsoft also notes that microphone problems can be related to audio enhancements or audio processing objects, also called APOs.
In this video, I’ll walk through the Windows 11 Settings app and show how to check each device manually. You need to do this for your output devices, like your headset or speakers, and your input devices, like your microphone.
The basic steps are:
Open Settings
Go to System
Open Sound
Select your headset or speaker under Output
Scroll down to Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio
Change the dropdown to None or turn enhancements off
Go back to Sound
Select your microphone under Input
Scroll down to Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio
Set that to None as well
The important part is checking each device separately. If you have multiple microphones, webcams, USB headsets, Bluetooth headsets, capture cards, audio interfaces, or virtual audio devices, Windows may have enhancement settings for more than one of them. Turning it off for only one device may not fix the problem if your recording software, game chat, Discord, OBS, or browser is using a different input.
This can help fix issues where your mic sounds bad in Discord, OBS, Zoom, Teams, Steam chat, game voice chat, browser recording tools, or any app that uses your Windows default microphone.
In this video:
• How to disable Audio enhancements in Windows 11
• How to set Enhanced audio to None
• How to turn off AI-style audio cleanup and background filtering
• How to disable enhancements for your headset or speakers
• How to disable enhancements for your microphone
• Why you should check every audio device manually
• How Windows enhancements can conflict with noise removal drivers
• Fix muted, robotic, muffled, quiet, or glitchy mic audio
• Fix headset sound that feels over-processed
• Why multiple background noise filters can break your audio
• Windows 11 Sound settings tutorial for beginners
#Windows11 #AudioEnhancements #MicrophoneFix
Is your microphone suddenly sounding muted, robotic, glitchy, over-filtered, or broken in Windows 11? In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to disable the new Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio settings for both your microphone and headset so Windows stops applying extra processing to your sound.
This is especially useful if you already use another background noise removal app, headset driver, broadcast tool, or microphone filter. When Windows 11 audio enhancements are running at the same time as another noise remover, the two systems can fight each other. That can make your microphone sound quiet, clipped, muffled, robotic, or like it is cutting in and out.
Microsoft’s own Windows troubleshooting pages recommend turning off audio enhancements when dealing with distorted, crackling, low, or quiet audio, and the setting is found under Settings then System then Sound, then selecting your device and changing Audio enhancements. Microsoft also notes that microphone problems can be related to audio enhancements or audio processing objects, also called APOs.
In this video, I’ll walk through the Windows 11 Settings app and show how to check each device manually. You need to do this for your output devices, like your headset or speakers, and your input devices, like your microphone.
The basic steps are:
Open Settings
Go to System
Open Sound
Select your headset or speaker under Output
Scroll down to Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio
Change the dropdown to None or turn enhancements off
Go back to Sound
Select your microphone under Input
Scroll down to Audio enhancements / Enhanced audio
Set that to None as well
The important part is checking each device separately. If you have multiple microphones, webcams, USB headsets, Bluetooth headsets, capture cards, audio interfaces, or virtual audio devices, Windows may have enhancement settings for more than one of them. Turning it off for only one device may not fix the problem if your recording software, game chat, Discord, OBS, or browser is using a different input.
This can help fix issues where your mic sounds bad in Discord, OBS, Zoom, Teams, Steam chat, game voice chat, browser recording tools, or any app that uses your Windows default microphone.
In this video:
• How to disable Audio enhancements in Windows 11
• How to set Enhanced audio to None
• How to turn off AI-style audio cleanup and background filtering
• How to disable enhancements for your headset or speakers
• How to disable enhancements for your microphone
• Why you should check every audio device manually
• How Windows enhancements can conflict with noise removal drivers
• Fix muted, robotic, muffled, quiet, or glitchy mic audio
• Fix headset sound that feels over-processed
• Why multiple background noise filters can break your audio
• Windows 11 Sound settings tutorial for beginners
#Windows11 #AudioEnhancements #MicrophoneFix
