Windows audio outputs to all surround sound speakers simultaneously during meetings

[cshayIW]

If surround sound is enabled in Windows audio settings, for example, 5.1 surround sound, which includes a center speaker and two surround speakers in addition to the main left/right speakers, all the meeting audio output will come from every speaker in the system simultaneously. I suppose this is fine for those who enjoy being yelled at from all directions at the same time by a single person speaking, but I would imagine, not so for most. The only workaround known to exist is to revert back to stereo audio in windows audio settings, but this is terribly inconvenient for those of us who use surround audio for other purposes, especially if it's a tool we use for our jobs because we need to remember to re-enable surround audio after every meeting. Note, "use original audio" does not fix this issue.

Expected behavior:

4 speakers present: Meeting audio should only appear in main left/right speakers.

5 or more speakers with center speaker present: Meeting audio should only appear in the center speaker.

Exceptions should only be for audio presented via shared screen optimized for video, if the presenter's audio system itself is actually using surround audio, and apply stereo fold-down for clients that only have stereo speakers.

[cshayIW]

Over a year later and no response? This issue is still incredibly annoying and persistent.

[simbarf]

Occurring for me too - very annoying in an audio studio environment