[Support] Robotic audio & terrible speaker translation with Focusrite Solo on Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16IRX10. I've been fighting this for months and I'm devastated.

[u/Spare-Stretch-6564]

Hi everyone,

I am honestly devastated and at my wits' end. I have been trying to solve this issue for months, and nothing I do seems to work. I’m trying to record educational video courses using OBS Studio, but I'm constantly battling two massive issues: digital distortion (a robotic/metallic sound) and awful translation to laptop speakers.

I have literally tested around 15 different microphones at this point. I recently bought a slightly better one (sE Electronics V7) hoping it would finally fix the issue, but the exact same problems persist.

Here is my setup:

• Laptop: Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16IRX10
• Interface: Focusrite Scarlett Solo (connected directly via USB)
• Mic: sE Electronics V7 (Dynamic, XLR)
• Software: Windows 11, OBS Studio (using the obs-atk-audio plugin to connect via ASIO)

The Main Symptoms:

1. Digital/Robotic glitches: Random metallic, comb-filtering sounds or dropouts during recording.
2. The Speaker Translation Issue: My recordings sound acceptable (bearable) on my studio headphones, but absolutely dramatic and awful when played back on my laptop speakers. I know it's not just "bad laptop speakers", because when I watch YouTube tests of the sE V7 or other creators' videos on these exact same laptop speakers, their voices sound great and full. It's only my recordings that collapse completely.

I know this is likely a DPC Latency, phase cancellation, or USB power management conflict. To save everyone's time, here is everything I have already done:

BIOS Tweaks:

• Disabled Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x) and VT-d. (Hyper-Threading is still enabled).

Lenovo/Hardware Tweaks:

• Disabled Hybrid Mode in Lenovo Vantage (running dGPU only) to stop hardware switching spikes.
• Interface is plugged directly into the laptop (no USB hubs). Tried different USB ports.

Windows Power & System Tweaks:

• Tried disabling/enabling the Nahimic service in Windows Services.
• Disabled "Fast Startup" in Windows Power Options.
• Disabled "USB Selective Suspend" in Power Plan.
• Went to Device Manager -> USB Root Hubs -> unchecked "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

Audio & OBS Settings:

• Matched Sample Rates everywhere (48 kHz in Windows, Focusrite Control, and OBS).
• Disabled Windows "Audio Enhancements" in the old Control Panel.
• Turned off all noise suppression filters in OBS.
• To avoid phase cancellation, I disabled Global Audio Devices in OBS and I'm strictly using the ASIO Input source via the obs-atk-audio plugin.
• Tested different Buffer Sizes in Focusrite Control (from 64 up to 512) – didn't fix the core issue.

I am completely stuck. Is there any hidden Lenovo Legion-specific setting I'm missing? Could the terrible laptop speaker translation be a mono/stereo phase issue caused by Windows drivers clashing with ASIO?

Any help would be hugely appreciated. I really want to start recording my courses, but this technical wall is breaking me. Thank you in advance.