I already had my audio device at the lowest bitrate and Hz level it could go to, had my equalizer on Standard, moved my listening position completely to character, updated my drivers, verified the game files (which took a solid 9 hours,) played in DX9, and did everything else that people were suggesting could fix the issue. It doesn't happen on any other game I play, and it wasn't an issue before Endwalker.

I'm going to try a clean install tomorrow just to see if it helps at all, but this seems more like an issue on the game's side than mine. As it stands, I can't play without muting all sounds, even system sounds, and it's not nearly as fun a game without the music and voice acting. I'm not going through the MSQ because I don't want to listen to choppy, echo-y audio during every cutscene, and I don't want to watch them while they're muted either. I effectively can't play Endwalker until this is fixed, and I only log on once a week now to do Custom Deliveries if I remember to.

I waited 3 weeks after launch for the patch that was supposed to fix it, only to be told "we fixed it" and then told if I was still having trouble to attempt one fix that I'd already tried during the 2 weeks after the announcement they'd fix it. I understand that server stability is an issue, and launches are never smooth, but some sort of message saying it's still an issue and it's still going to be worked on goes a long way towards keeping me hopeful I'll be able to play Endwalker.