Getting rid of audio fade-in in Windows 11

For some reason, audio often fades in when I listen to something in various applications, causing me to miss the start of the audio, and it's driving me to distraction. I've disabled all enhancements, spatial sound, and even disabled the Realtek audio effect component drivers in Device Manager, but it is still happening. What causes audio to fade in instead of starting normally? It doesn't happen every time, but it happens regularly, and it interferes with my work and accessibility.