Game ignores audio enhancement programs (APO Equalizer, iCUE, etc)

[Keru]

I use sh*tty Corsair HS80s and by default their audio quality is really bad, so I use APO Equalizer to set a custom equalizer to adjust gain and frequency.

Metaphor Refantazio seems to ignore all these settings and just uses the default sh*tty non enhanced audio so everything just sounds fuzzy and muffled to me.

To test this, in APO Equalizer I completely lowered preamplification gain until there was NO SOUND. I opened a YouTube video to test it, and as expected no sound. I then open Metaphor Refantazio and surprise, I HAVE SOUND. It completely ignores the audio enhancements. I even tested this with Corsair's default program iCUE and it's also ignored by the game.

Is anyone else experiencing this same or similar issue?
Does anyone have a solution? (and no, buying new headphones is not a solution)

EDIT: Temporary solution provided by users in comments below is to use ANOTHER program (FxSound or Virtual Audio Cable) to route all your sound enhancements into a new playback device in your sound settings. You will need this to be your new Default Device and select it in the settings in-game.

I used FxSound's default profile to just route my APO equalizer enhancements into a separate playback device called "FxSound Speakers". You could also just set your equalizer in FxSound (but I'm lazy). Virtual Audio Cable is also able to do this as told by a user in the comments.

I know this all seems annoying, but it's the only way to get our equalizers to work/louder volume until Atlus finally decide to fix the problem.

[moshiwakeda]

I am able to get around this for now by using Virtual audio cable and routing everything through there.
I already use Virtual audio cable for a lot of things so it's not a big deal for me right now
I guess if you really wanted to circumvent this issue you could do the same. It's a free software

[Dagný]

moshiwakeda님이 먼저 게시:

I am able to get around this for now by using Virtual audio cable and routing everything through there.
I already use Virtual audio cable for a lot of things so it's not a big deal for me right now
I guess if you really wanted to circumvent this issue you could do the same. It's a free software

You see, my issue with ,,download this to fix a single problem“ is that it's happening ONLY with this game, my audio settings are perfectly fine with everything else.
ATLUS games never had this issue before.
It's a huge problem with the game, they had weeks to fix it but decide to do nothing at all.

[Lucathegreat]

Yeah audio is terrible, it's like low fixed Surround without any option to change it whatsoever.

[Rings]

moshiwakeda님이 먼저 게시:

I am able to get around this for now by using Virtual audio cable and routing everything through there.
I already use Virtual audio cable for a lot of things so it's not a big deal for me right now
I guess if you really wanted to circumvent this issue you could do the same. It's a free software

Can you actually explain what you did?

Scratch that, I fixed it myself.

1. Download a Virtual Audio cable from VB-Audio (get VBCABLE_Driver_Pack45, which was uploaded Oct 2024, since it allows you to use Windows volume control) and install + reboot as directed.
2. Go to Windows Sound settings
3. Playback tab > set the Virtual Audio cable as default device
4. Recording tab > locate the Virtual Audio cable, double click > Listen tab > check "Listen to this device"
5. Select your speakers in the dropdown below the "Listen to this device" checkbox
6. In Equalizer APO, install it to the Virtual Audio cable

[Overeagerdragon]

moshiwakeda님이 먼저 게시:

I am able to get around this for now by using Virtual audio cable and routing everything through there.
I already use Virtual audio cable for a lot of things so it's not a big deal for me right now
I guess if you really wanted to circumvent this issue you could do the same. It's a free software

I can vouch for this working. I've been running all my audio through AudioBanana and CablePotato (Look them up before you think those names are trolls) which are virtual cable programs...

NGL; they take a bit to setup but being able to segregate soundchannels was pretty much a must back when I streamed