In case you still have this problem after more than a year, I found a solution
. I had the same problem as you. I couldn’t hear what was directly in front of my character.
It was actually a setting in windows that was the problem: Go to Control Panel -> Sound. There’s a list of your outputs. Select the one you’re using and press “Configure”. Mine was set to 7.1 Surround… I changed it to stereo, since I’m on headphones. And voilá, problem solved!