EQ APO not playing nice with Teams in Windows 11
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Equalizer APO isn’t playing nice with MS Teams in Windows 11. When I say teams, I mean the Teams thick client for office 365, not the new lite, personal teams that MS added to win11. As far as I can tell, only Teams has problems. Audio works great everywhere else, equalizing works fine, etc. Teams will complain that “your speakers aren’t working” and you can't hear call or meeting audio
To start at the top… using a Schiit Modius DAC and with win10, equalizer APO and PEACE everything was fine. I installed the latest build of win11 (22000.194 which is essentially the release build if im not mistaken) this past weekend (clean install, no upgrade) and reinstalled APO and PEACE and everything was working great. No issues with sound or EQ. this morning, I try to join a Teams meeting for work and its complaining about “your speakers aren’t working”. Teams audio (like the ringer) plays fine. Other system sounds play fine, music, video, etc. all great but teams wasn’t happy.
First, restarted Teams. No luck. Restarted Windows. No luck. Power cycled the DAC. No luck. I then tried moving it from a USB3 to USB2 port. Suddenly Teams was happy. I quickly realized that the audio wasn’t being equalized so I opened up the configurator and since this was seen as a “new” device on this other port, I installed APO on it and rebooted. Back to broken Teams. Removed APO, rebooted and Teams is back. Went back to the USB3 port and same deal; once I removed APO from that device, Teams worked.
So essentially, APO functions as an EQ fine in win 11 but for some reason doesn’t play nice with Teams. I have not found any other audio problems with APO installed; just Teams. There is no log file from equalizer APO being generated, probably because it never generates an error itself. The problem seems to lie with Teams but that’s just speculation.
Last edit: Brian 2021-09-27
Got the exact same problem with HyperX Cloud 2 headset connected via USB. Uninstalling APO from the device, makes it work in Teams. Every other app works fine with or without APO. This is likely due to changes in the audio subsystem in Windows 11 which so far seems to affect only APO+Teams combo.
Other apps verified working with APO in Windows 11: Zoom, Discord, Google Meet on browser, in-game audio in CS:GO.
Have you tried SFX/EFX of the troubleshooting options for the audio device? It might be that Windows 11 with team insists on the (Windows) setting. By default Equalizer APO is on Windows 7 LFX/GFX.
@Peter I tried this just and you are right! It works with SFX/EFX! I'll use it through the day to see if it's impacting anything else and report back. Thanks for the tip!
Great to hear!
I just tried sfx/efx and teams does indeed work properly now! EQ is working still. will test it out today with some other stuff (have a zoom call later this morning for example). thanks.
That's just great! Good to know that Teams under Windows 11 has been changed to the Windows 10 SFX/EFX Audio Processing Objects technique. This could mean that the support of LFX/GFX is being dropped in Windows 11.
Hi, I've been using this with Zoom, Discord and Teams for the past 4-5 hours and it's solid so far. Thanks for your tip, Peter.
Happy to help, Rajshri.
to reiterate what Rajshri said, i also had no issues since changing to sfx/efx in any other conferencing apps or discord or anything else ive tried for that matter. looks like its working perfect now. thanks.
Brian, thanks for reporting your (positive) experience. I hope the developer of Equalizer APO will update the Configurator to accomodate Windows 10 and 11.
Thanks to all of you for solving this problem! Indead, after updating to Windows 11, only MS Teams encountered this problem. I have just tested it on MS Teams and switched the configuration to SFX/EFX, and it worked like a charm!
So glad I can continue using this program, since my computer has a problem with its audio (Volume too low at 100), and I myself am not much of a tech-guy anyway.
I hope my comment can make this post more relevent to find, so that people can solve this nerve-racking problem more easily.
Again, thank you for all of you guys' support!
Last edit: Alvis P. 2021-10-20
Great to know. Thanks, Alvis, for reporting this. I guess, the support of the former Windows 7 LFX/GFX will be dropped or is dropped on Windows 11. Still the Configurator will say "recommended" which isn't true of course.
Sorry to ask, but can someone include instructions on how to do this? ie: to switch MS Teams to use the configuration SFX/EFX, instead of APO? thank you in advance.
You need to completely uninstall APO and restart your PC. After that, reinstall APO and bring up the Configurator where you select the device in which you want to install APO. select the device, click the Troubleshoot options checkbox below and choose Install as SFX/EFX (experimental) in the dropdown on the right.
To avoid confusion: Select the device by clicking in the left Connector column.
Hi Guys,
Just wanted to say a massive thank you to all for figuring out this one.
Was a massive issue as I use Teams for meetings/work, would have had to uninstall APO if not for this fix.
Thanks again!
Hi .turn off every part of the program called windows power shell and everything will be fine, Apo will work!
Hello,
I registered an account on here only to express my gratitude for you guys solving the issue.
It works like a charm. Thank you!
Last edit: Samuel 2021-12-08
Great to hear you've found the solution.
Hi everyone
I would like to do the same as Samuel: Just say thank you for the help, Peter! Your solution works perfectly.
It's so refreshing when the internet is nice. :)
Have a great day :)
You're welcome, James. Great to know it also works on your computer.