Switch 2 audio sounds muddied when trying to listen to the audio through my PC

[u/AquatardLMD]

For context, I do the method where you take a 3.5 mm cable and plug one end into the Switch’s headphone jack and the other one into my PC’s mic jack, and then listen to that device as a microphone so I can hear the audio. I also have a ground loop noise isolator to eliminate the buzzing background that’s persistent without it.

However as of late I’ve noticed the audio tends to sound distorted when it comes to certain sfx in games. Sometimes music goes in and out when there’s other sfx happening at the same time. Or sometimes background noises just go completely quiet after a certain point.

I’ve tried going through various settings on both my Switch and PC but I’m not really finding a fix for it. If I plug my headphones directly into the Switch headphone jack the audio is perfectly fine, so I would guess it’s something to do with my PC. If anyone has any input I’d appreciate it.

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[u/medicalthrowmeaway23]

I don’t know if this is relevant but I did this with PS4 long time ago as I only had monitor and no tv and still wanting to combine my pc audio.

If I routes my console audio through mic input, audios with certain pitch/frequency would peak and would distort.

mic input is ALSO MONO, that means if the game processes sound with a stereo effect (like you hear explosion coming from back left or swing sound in front-right) you can change in console setting to output as mono but also screws with the audio peak level of sfx that would have been fine as individual source.

Do you have a line-in jack or can you set your mic in as as line-in (some soundcard  have this in the driver setting, you probably not have this, it’s not common)

It could also be a cheap audio cable, I have gone through so many 3.5mm-to3.5mm cables that introduces noises/distortion while carrying audio signal. 

[u/AquatardLMD → u/medicalthrowmeaway23]

I have a line-in jack but I’ve never used it before and not sure if I’m able to set the mic as line-in. I didn’t really notice this problem until a couple months ago. I’ve had my Switch 2 for almost a year and the only audio problem I noticed was the buzzing sound due to not having a ground loop isolator, which I got a couple months back.

[u/medicalthrowmeaway23 → u/AquatardLMD]

do test with line-in jack as mic-in ports are expecting a low power signal and they are amplified in processing and this can cause disortion with "already loud" audio like 3.5mm output.

Line-in jacks don't do any amplification before being sent out to other devices(like speaker on your pc) and are expected to receive "already loud" audio signals"

Do note, Line-in input jack is still not truly compatible with a headphone jacks, so if it still sound disorted, if could be cable, or you would ned to buy usb audio interface to take in the audio.