This is not a problem, per se, which is why I am posting it here. I have noticed since the first 1.5 patch that whenever I turn away from someone speaking (whether I am in an active conversation or not), the voice file drops out for a moment. In other words, I hear two NPCs talking and if I turn away from them, I lose their audio for just a moment. It doesn't pause, it's like they are muted for a half-second. I am wondering if his has to do with the change in stereo (moving the audio from one channel to another).

Has anyone else noticed this?

As I said, it's not really a problem, just a bit of an immersion-breaker.

Mine was doing that, then got worse. However, I am using earphones, and it turned out that my earphone are dying. If you are not using earphones, I've no idea what the problem is.

Hmm, this happens on my headphones and earbuds, which are stereo, and on my laptop speaker (which is a single bar). Same thing. I don't lose other audio (music, soundeffects, etc) - just dialogue.

I read it might have something to do with using onboard realtek sound. I get the same issue and also have a motherboard with realtek sound which i use with speakers and different headphones depending on my mood. One solution is to switch from stereo desktop speakers to 5.1 surround in your audio settings which worked for me eventhough am using stereo. Afterwards i switch it back to stereo for my other games etc.

I've some sound issues as well...sometimes the sounds (either of the game or the menu) gets "lazy" and plays several seconds after they should have played, and often many of them at the same time if I performed several actions (like clicking 2 or more menu options).

Not game-breaking, but annoying.