Besides game bugs, audio can be heavily affected by the quality and the set up of audio hardware. So far, I've tried 3 different high quality headphones, on 2 PC's with different integrated sound, one higher quality and one cheap. Headphones are Audio-Technica ATH-M40x, Bose QC35 and Sony WH1000 XM4, and I also use a Focusrite Scarlett Solo audio interface.
The clear winners are the least expensive ones, ATH M40x, and it's not that big of a surprise for me because these are professional (entry level) studio monitors, so they are well balanced and don't boost the bass or use other sound enhancing stuff. With them on, I've very rarely missed any footsteps or lack of clarity from where the sounds came from. Next are the Sony, which give sounds richness and presence, but this makes it a bit harder to focus on certain sounds at times, a hot drop rumble can get really confusing and turning the volume down a bit kind of hides footsteps. Another issue with both Sony and Bose seems related to noise cancelling, I feel like it somehow alters the 3d audio perception and masks the low sounds at times. When connected via Bluetooth, I didn't notice the sound being laggy on neither Sony nor Bose, but both support low latency, so maybe the lag is too small to be noticeable.
Another thing that I've noticed, playing with the same pair of headphones (Bose in this case) on both PCs. The one which has the higher end integrated sound and to which I'm connecting through the usb audio interface sounds better. Also, on the cheaper one, I've experienced the sound coming from another direction than where the legend actually was, which makes me wonder if the lower end audio hardware can actually suffer from performance delays.
