Got my OLED LE yesterday and I’ve noticed with IEMs that I’m getting this steady static noise/feedback sound from the new deck. Did not have this issue on my original deck, but I’ve seen a lot of older posts discussing this kind of issue on the original deck after searching. So…just a heads up, test your audio jack. I am probably just going to use a USB C audio adapter, NO way I’m going through the RMA process for this.
For what its worth, I got the interference pretty badly with the old 3.5mm earbuds I used on my LCD deck. I honestly dont remember having that issue there. However, I used an over-the-ear headset, a Hyper-X I had lying around, and I did NOT get the interference. Like, not even a little. Maybe something to do with the nature of the cable on that set? I legit don’t have the proper technical knowledge to really get into detail on this.
I’m not an audio expert so this is just the general gist - but I think the reason it is affecting some headphones and not others has to do with resistance. Usually the nicer and larger the pair of headphones the more “resistance” it has which roughly means how much power required to drive the headphones and how sensitive they are to fluctuation in that power.
The higher the resistance the more power required and the less sensitive they are to fluctuations in power. Earbuds are definitely less than 50 ohms. The WH-MX3000s I have (a pair of regular Sony noise canceling headphones) are around 47 ohms so I noticed the noise in those as well.
I have a pair of Sennhesier 6XXs which are giant, great headphones, and they have a resistance of a whopping 300 ohms and I can’t hear the issue in those. But most headphones are closer to the under 50 range.
Your Hyper-X’s are probably somewhere in between the two.
Fantastic explanation, thank you!
I suppose now I’m in the market for high-impedance in-ear headphones, lol. The hyper-x is nice around the house, but when I’m on campus it’d be nice to not need to lug around those and all my other stuff AND the deck.
Although there is some surface-level truth to this, it’s way more convoluted and not as linear as that. There are plenty of audiophile-grade headphones which are more sensitive and easier to drive than cheap ones. The fact is that both impedance and sensitivity levels affect how easy it is for headphones to pick up distortion, interference, etc. Referring to my comment above with some tests, my 250ohm Beyerdynamic DT-770 are the only pair which currently hides the problem 100%. They are usually quite difficult to drive and yet the Steam Deck doesn’t seem to have an issue with volume with them. This leads me to think they messed up the pre-amping/ level of current which is always being output, making it way too high for more sensitive gear and leading to that obvious and obnoxious electrical floor noise.
I would really like to think that this is maybe a driver/ software-level issue, since I’ve had problems with noise before with wireless headsets, audiophile DACs, etc. which were made better with updates and switching drivers. I’m still waiting for Valve’s response to my support ticket. In the meantime, I’d suggest everyone affected by this would also complain to them so we can maybe start to figure this out.