Question Need some seriously clean audio output

[Fastfishy2]

I will start by describing the problem. Whenever some system sounds - and occasionally some game sounds once in a blue moon depending on how they're sampled - are suddenly stopped, various headsets I've tried can make a very subtle "pop" which annoys the hell out of me. I've got very sensitive hearing so I always notice it when it happens.

I switched from AudioTechnica M30x to HyperX cloud III's and nothing changed much in that regard. I also tried a fiio K1 DAC with both headsets as well as the included DAC with the hyperX headset, and while switching to USB DAC in general did remove the crackling while playing with the windows volume slider, other sounds still make a pop when cut off quickly, particularly lower frequency sounds.

I did some more digging and this seems to be a problem I'm not going to be able to avoid, something to do with sounds suddenly being cut while at a certain point on the sine wave will generally cause a "pop" and I was able to easily replicate it with a clip of a very low frequency sound.

Is there anything I can get for my Windows 11 desktop that has some sort of filtering or applies a tiny fade out to all audio when it stops? I don't want to hear these pops anymore, even though they're very rare. I've got more USB slots free than I care to admit, and got PCI expansion slots free as well.

Is this possible?

 

[Colif]

so its through USB so cleaning connections probably isn't the answer. It is one of the solutions offered.

Sounds like its clipping?

Clipping (audio) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

One answer is turn down the volume
check any eq settings or add ons
the more expensive dongles like the BTR17 would have filters that might remove that noise for you, your K1 doesn't have any it seems?
https://fiio.com/btr17

one advice is use a quality cable but thats a trap in audio... better quality with nice looks is probably enough. Don't spend 100s on a USB cable.

disconnect headset before turning off the sound? would that remove pop? reduce volume before hand as well?

I can't say I have heard it a lot and up until recently ran my dac off the PC, whether its a Fiio BTR7 or Aune S9c.

you might want to look into Steelseries Sonar, it might help
https://steelseries.com/gg/sonar

https://support.steelseries.com/hc/en-us/articles/5570946137869-Change-a-band-filter