Split Audio Between Headset And Speakers
I have both headphones and speakers plugged into my motherboard's analog output jacks. It's a pretty standard Windows desktop setup, the motherboard does HD Audio which has 5 analog jacks which can be programmed to do different things like speakers, headphones, line-in.
- How To Split Sound Between Speakers And Headphones Reviews. Had I recognized this i would have got gone ahead to buy a headset.Right now i possess a bluetooth speaker which offers a USB in for.
- DigiGalaxy tutorials now have speech! In this simple, easy to follow tutorial, you'll learn how to have both your Headphones, and your Speakers working at th.
- The only difference here is that you're plugging a set of speakers into one jack on the splitter and headphones in the other. Instead of two pairs of headphones. When you want to use headphones, simply turn the volume knob on your speakers down to zero and put on your headphones.
Also pretty standard, my computer had the RealTek HD Audio Manager installed, an ASUS skinned one. This does a nice job of popping up a dialog when the user plugs in new speakers and asking them to configure it. Unfortunately it also seems to have a behavior where when I plug in headphones it automatically silences the speakers. In fact both analog outputs show up as a single 'Speaker' device in Windows, there's no way to use them independently.
In theory the Realtek driver has option settings to reconfigure this behavior, to let you use the rear and front jacks as separate devices. But my version didn't have those settings, no 'Playback Device' section at all.
Following some cargo cult advice I solved this problem by just uninstalling Realtek entirely. Goodbye 500 MB of stupid reverb effects I'll never use. Turns out Windows 10 itself can manage the audio hardware with no problems. I did have to unplug and re-plug the devices for Windows to detect them, but now my speakers and headphones show up as separate sound devices.
While I'm here, a little theory on how this all works in Windows. Each sound device is an independent output channel for apps to play to. Most apps just play to the 'Default App', which you configure in the Sound control panel or with a program like SoundSwitch. But some apps let you choose a specific output device, particularly games, and you can use that to play different sounds simultaneously through different apps. There's also a notion of a 'Communications device' separate from the usual default, I think for VOIP apps like Skype to use a headset always.
I'm still confused about what drivers are involved. Device Manager tells me stuff is being managed by Microsoft's Driver 10.0.14393.0, which I think is just Windows 10. But Sound tells me that there's also a RealTek Controller which a RealTek Driver 6.0.1.7910. I wonder if Microsoft ships that, or if I didn't uninstall that driver when I uninstalled the Realtek Audio Manager?
Update: this stopped working after I rebooted.
Splitting Audio For Headset And Speakers Wireless
Update 2: a reader wrote to suggest
The problem is that Windows 10 reinstalls the Realtek driver automatically (in the background without asking no less…). To stop that you can open the device manager and open the 'Sound, video and game controllers' list (not 'Audio inputs and outputs', there it doesn't work). There you will see that your audio device is a Realtek device again. Open properties, go to the driver tab and click on 'Roll Back Driver…'. Now you will get the Windows driver and it wont reinstall the Realtek driver.
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