Headphones cause crash during session loading (reproducible)

SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless (Xbox edition)

This was extremely difficult to pinpoint but I finally figured out the issue. I don't have a solution but hopefully a dev will see this.

System:
Windows 11 24H2
RTX 3080

The issue: if the headphones are the default audio device OR if I select them from the audio menu, the game will crash. I have tried enabling/disabling headphone mix and enabling/disabling Windows Sonic and Dolby Atmos, all combinations.

I am able to get into the game and even into the showroom but if I try to load a session it crashes and won't go to the track.

If I switch to any other audio device, it works fine. The headphones work fine in all other games.

Things I performed while trying to identify this issue (both prod and beta builds):
deleted all mods
verified the integrity of the files
removed user folder
changed from 24bit to 16bit audio in the sound control panel

Any suggestions? Maybe some audio-related .dll to remove or swap out? Or some audio setting that needs to be enabled/disabled in Windows?

Definitely a weird bug.

UPDATE: If I run SteelSeries GG software, it creates 5 additional virtual audio devices, if I select one of those, it works but if I just select the normal headphone audio device, it crashes. In the sound control panel, the configure option for the non-virtual device is greyed out, so I can't force it to stereo, etc. I guess I'll start using the SteelSeries GG software unless there's another way. Maybe that was a fluke. Even with the GG software running it crashes when loading a track.

UPDATE 2: Kept at it and it seems to be related to the USB wireless hub being connected to a dying USB switch. If I connect it directly to the PC it works. Racing sims seem to be very sensitive to this issue, as other games work fine (Quake 2, Silksong, NFS Unbound) but BeamNG, AC Evo and AMS2 all crash (and work fine with other audio devices).

Hopefully this information saves someone else time in the future.

Even with the above, the USB hub is still worth it imho, so I'll get a replacement. One button to switch between PC and PS5 is too nice to give up.