So for quite a while now my mic has been shitty for about 30% of the people on the server. It doesn't always happen, and it doesn't always happen to everyone. If I could describe the problem, it's as if my mic is "overloading" some speakers. The trouble with this problem is I never know when it's happening. To add to the shittiness, it REALLY fucks up people's speakers. I play with headphones, I know your pain.
What do I do to "fix" it? I found a work around that works about 30% of the time. I can adjust my Windows mic transmit volume, my Steam transmit volume, and my tf2 transmit volume and SOMETIMES it works. Often, my mic becomes much too quiet for people to hear, which I guess isn't so bad. The other downside is that this process takes forever.
Why is this Critsandvich's problem? To my knowledge, this only happens on critsandvich servers. Hardass Mike made a pretty convincing argument that it had something to do with the server's audio codec and HL DJ. I haven't done much research to confirm or deny this, but I would be interested to see what the server admins think.
I really want to fix this problem so I can enjoy my time on critsandvich. If nothing can be done, or if I'm just crazy then I guess I'll take it day to day.