Gears 5: How to fix awful audio with bluetooth headphones or “hands off” audio issues. If you get awful or low quality audio do this.

The issue / what happens: So I have a pair of Bluetooth candy crusher evo connected to Win11 and everytime I open like a specific game [like Gears 5, oof] after some time usually on main menu, my audio turns to ♥♥♥♥ and the microphone auto-activates so the headphone changes to its “hands-off” version which is awful audio.

Plain and Simple

Remember: Windows 11, may work on 10.

1. Go to the audio panel in your windows screen bottom-right then locate your audio speaker icon. 2. Right click -> 3. Sound Settings -> 4. Inside that window, choose your Headphones [Your Headphone Model, in my case Candy Crusher Evo] -> Inside that next window, Scroll Down to the bottom [You should be in the System > Sound > Properties window] until you find Audio Enhancements -> It doesn’t matter if it is on or off, just change it to either on or off or the opposite.

In a nutshell: Change Audio Enhancements to either on or off while the game is open and that fixes it. If I remember well you can change it to whatever you need that settings to after that, this fixes the audio for me every single time.

That’s it, that fixes it.

This also fixes audio issues like that in Microsoft games like Halo Master Collection and sometimes Doom Eternal. I cannot remember what other games this happens with. But that should fix it.

The con is that you always have to do this when it changes to worse audio or “hands-off” version of the Bluetooth headphone. So, with that I hope that fixes it for ya and have fun!

Cheers and happy gaming! :]

This issue is kind of tricky. Normally this would fix it with normal headphones -list below- but it somehow doesn’t with Bluetooth “hands-off” or mic headphones in specific games like Gears 5, Halo Master Collection, Doom Eternal, etc.

So this stuff I tried but did not help which is what weirded me out at the beginning.

• 1.- Disabling the microphone in the windows audio settings panel/window
• 2.- Disabling and Enabling the Headphone in windows
• 3.- Re-connecting and/or pairing again the headphone via Bluetooth to the PC a few times
• 4.- Restarting the machine…
• 5.- Reinstalling the game… oof. We both know Gears 5 is kind of heavy.
• 6.- Updating my audio drivers in the mobo website [model, brand, number, etc.]
• 7.- Disabling the hands-off version? I cannot remember if I did this at all but I should and it still gave me issues if I remember well.
• 8.- I can’t remember what else, but it gave me like a day of troubles or so. So, I tried more stuff lol I just don’t remember :].

Ending stuff:

• Can’t remember beyond that, I also thought the headphones were bad or damaged, etc. Tricky issue.
• Also sometimes the game may decide to not do this issue at all so sometimes you may be good to go from the game launch/start and may not have to do this fix at all for that session. Sometimes the game just works… ???
• Weird issue just wanted to throw this extra info since if you had not experienced this issue it may seem like a pointless guide but it is such a tricky weird issue that seems to happen with Bluetooth headphones that have like “hands-off” or mic versions. I wish mine did not came with a mic thought since I do not need it at all but I liked the other features so yep.

  Either way, I hope it helps! :]

  Final thoughts: Somehow today 10/16/2024 I do not have that issue anymore with Gears 5. I do not know what I moved in my PC but it seems to work without issues after the main-menu, it always switched to bad quality audio after the main menu for me but not anymore it seems. My current audio settings in the Sound panel in windows 11 are: Playback tab: Headphones On -> Recording tab: Headset disabled and Microphone not plugged-in. If you still have issues try these settings since these may help. To get to this window go to your speaker again in your windows screen, right click -> sound settings -> scroll all the way down -> click on more sound settings -> the “Sound” small screen will appear, same as mine. It should have four tabs: Playback, recording, sounds and communications. Only focus on the first too, same as mine. This may fix it, maybe. Zero issues here so far with Gears 5 and tested the game 3 times while writing this guide. This may help anybody having issues in the future, I hope this fixes it for you, cheers!