[Old Report] Background Dialogue too Quiet
I've had a lot of difficulty, most notably in Mass Effect 2 and 3, hearing npc and squad mate ambient dialogue. I often can't hear anything they are saying. Mass Effect 3 has a lot of side quests that start or are explained through this background dialogue on the Citadel and I have missed most of those conversations. I have noticed that if you are facing them as they talk, they do get a bit louder, but the moment they aren't centred, they become much quieter. Either way they are too hard to hear. I thought it might be an issue with surround sound, so I disabled it and switched to stereo, but the same thing occurred either way. None of the sound settings in the game seem to make it any better. I'd like to see the audio mix adjusted so these conversations are the same volume as dialogue that is spoken when you are having a direct conversation with someone.
I had a similar problem and it was driving me crazy. The background dialogue was wildly fluctuating in volume throughout the Trilogy, sometimes too quiet, sometimes not. I am using headphones and play ME Legendary on a PC running Windows 11.
What solved my problem was rightclicking on the speaker symbol on the taskbar, then select sound settings. In the window that opens up click "choose where to play sound" , and click on the currently active output device (in my case it was "speakers"), indicated by a big black dot inside a circle. Another window pops up, and there is a setting for "Spatial sound". It was set to "Off" and i had to switch it from "Off" to "Windows Sonic for Headphones".
This actually solved my problem, and i wish i knew that before i played through the whole game. I hope this helps somebody.
