Audio playback through headphones and speakers

Anonymous
2009-10-25T00:30:33+00:00

Headphones or speakers in windows 7, Can't have both?

Looked over the other questions, nothing seemed close.

My machine was dual boot, XP and Vista ultimate, now XP and Windows 7. In both XP and Vista I could have the speakers and the headphones plugged in together, both playerd noise, and I could use one or the other by plugging them into the front and back audio jacks.

This enables me to play games during day with speakers, and then at night with head phones, and no reaching round under my desk to remove cables.

Now I am using windows 7 and amongst the many other problems I have with it, I can't play with speakers or headphone until I have gone through a silly lot of clicking to disable one or choose the other as default. Why has this been changed in windows 7 after Vista, it seems an utterly pointless logic. I can turn my speakers off with the power button and get the headphones working. Now I am either or. So my brand new IR head phones are wasted. Please someone tell me there is a work around?

It's little meddling silliness like this that make me want to remain in XP.

Much thanks in anticipation someone has figured a work around.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-05-18T17:05:27+00:00

I've got both my Jabra GN9350 and my laptop speakers playing audio at the same time. :)

Here's the trick (and it's been verified on 3 other Win 7 systems):

  1. R click on your speaker icon, select 'Recording Devices' (if you have the sounds dialog up, it's the 2nd tab 'Recording')
  2. R click in the white space, be sure that BOTH "show disabled devices" AND "show disconnected devices" are checked.
  3. **Now this step is going to take a little bit of thought for each computer being used: on my laptop (HP Elitebook) I get a device "Stereo Mix", ENABLE this device.
  4. Click on Properties, go to the tab 'Listen'
  5. Check the box "Listen to this device", also change the drop-down box below "Playback through this device" to be your second audio device

-- To verify that you've done this correctly, go back to the Sound dialog tab Playback, you should now see both of your audio devices showing the little green graphs moving.

Here are the specific settings that I have on my laptop, maybe this will help with your settings:

Speakers- GN9350 (Default Communications Device)

Speakers- SoundMAX Integrated Digital HD Audio (Default Device)

Stereo Mix- 'Listen' feature points this  device to my GN9350 headset.

Paul

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Anonymous
2009-12-02T19:11:46+00:00

Right. Your hardware has not found a driver that works in Win 7. You will have to keep checking for updates for that to use the device in Win 7 the way you want it.

Rating posts helps other usersMark L. Ferguson MS-MVP

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64 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-06-23T10:24:40+00:00

    doesn't work dude... this is bull ****....

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-07-28T13:13:38+00:00

    Hi Sandeep, 

    I've tried your method and successfully played on both speakers and headphones!

    How do I revert back to just playing on speakers?

    Regards,

    Jay

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-26T21:38:50+00:00

    For people looking for solution as of now: (Tutorial work with msi motherboards..and other) 

    Steps:

    1. Right click the volume icon
    2. Recording devices
    3. Right click a white space (Not a device)
    4. Click show disabled devices
    5. Depending on your pc, something would have appeared. (Mine is 'Stereo Mix'.)
    6. Right click this device and select Enable
    7. With the device selected, press the available 'properties' button.
    8. Go into the tab Listen
    9. Tick ' listen to this device'
    10. under the tickey box, select the drop down menu and choose the headphone option. (go to side step 1 if no headphone option found)

    11)click ok and go into the playback tab

    1. Right click the 'speakers' device and make default device.

    Test audio . If sound level is ok, stop here. (Notes at bottom)

    Recommended Method

    1. Find your way back to the 'Playback' tab.
    2. select the headphone device and click properties
    3. under levels, turn it up to a better level

    Alt method:

    1. Right click the sound icon on the task bar
    2. go into volume control options

    15)select 'all devices currently playing sound' and un-tick default communication devices

    1. click ok, and left click the sound icon.

    17)It should have 2 options, headphones and speakers

    1. click 'mixer' for the headphones
    2. turn up the volume

    IF SPEAKER SOUND is low, turn up the other option.

    Side 1) In control panel, in the top navigation bar ( equivalent of the URL on the internet), there's an arrow next to 'control panel', click it and click ' All control panel items'.

    Then, find ' Realtek hd audio manager.

    near to the close button, there's an analogue (settings) button.

    In at least one of the settings buttons, you'll find an option 'Make front and rear output devices.....simultaneously'

    DONE, return to step 10.(the headphone will be under '2nd output')

    NOTES

    If you want to undo this process quickly, like for quiet headphone only time, Recording devices > right click > disable

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