An example on Series X: from rest, start the Dresden-Cheminitz BR612 at 50% throttle and listen. You will hear a distinctive audio popping every 5 seconds or so. Not the jackhammer but still pretty bad. This comes and goes as different regimes of the engine engage and different audio files are used. Tried the exact same test on PS5 with zero popping - clean as a whistle. Whatever calmed down the jackhammer issue is obviously only papering over the cracks of a much wider problem (xaudio?). Probably something DTG should address as we move towards TSW3. It would be nice to start a new iteration of the game with these audio issues behind us!
What you experience there is probably doe to the audio compression that is needed for the XBox to save memory consumption for audio files (they can get quite big when not compressed). The compression can destroy perfectly set loops because the audio resolution changes and produces new artefacts what can "move" zero-sample-positions at the start and end of the audio file. There is nothing much anyone could do. The nature of audio we need for the trains is way different to any audio that is used on casual games. We need a lot of short looped stuff to get any result from real trains. There might be better techniques to achieve that, but in TSW and TSC we don't have them available yet. From an audio-engineers perspective loops are a pain in the arse, especially from trains.
I have just started playing TSW2 on my Xbox series X and I have also noticed the audio popping on the GWE and Koln/Aachen route. I normally play on the PC but now I've got a series X I want to return to the Xbox platform after previously playing on a Xbox one X before buying a PC. I'm not a fan of PC's so I really want to stick with the Xbox, so I hope they can improve the sound. One thing I have noticed so far is that I get less stuttering on the Xbox series X compared to my reasonable spec PC.
