{"id":372,"date":"2021-05-13T14:21:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T18:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/?p=372"},"modified":"2025-07-19T15:17:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T19:17:34","slug":"how-to-get-your-usb-headphone-mic-to-work-in-windows-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/how-to-get-your-usb-headphone-mic-to-work-in-windows-10\/","title":{"rendered":"How to get your USB Headphone Microphone to Work in Windows 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

I teach a lot of Zoom classes. I also like to hear myself in my headphones while I am lecturing. In the past year I purchased two different brand headphones with microphones that cost ~$25 to $35 from Amazon<\/a> to use in Windows 10. Neither would work right. I could not hear myself speaking but I could hear my students fine. I read support forums online and even sent a support request to a manufacturer, all came up empty. Finally I decided to just start digging in Windows 10 and find the missing checkbox. <\/p>\n

Here are the steps to correct this problem:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
      \n
    1. Plug in your USB headphones; make sure your headphones are selected as default<\/li>\n
    2. Press the Windows key<\/strong> and enter Control Panel<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. Click on Sound<\/strong> in Control Panel<\/strong>; your layout for Control Panel <\/strong>may be different than mine, just look for Sound
      \n<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. On the Playback<\/strong> tab, click on Speakers <\/strong>(seems odd going to Speakers<\/strong> to fix a microphone)
      \n<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. Click on Properties<\/strong><\/li>\n
    6. Now click on the Levels<\/strong> tab<\/li>\n
    7. On the right side of the Microphone<\/strong> levels, UNcheck<\/em><\/strong> the little Speaker Icon<\/strong> to turn on your microphone (one sneaky little checkbox)<\/li>\n
    8. Finally, click OK<\/strong> and OK<\/strong> again, and close the open programs<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"headphone-mic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      Before I forget where I found the checkbox, I recorded this video which I hope will help other frustrated headphone users:<\/p>\n

      https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/headphone-mic.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I teach a lot of Zoom classes. I also like to hear myself in my headphones while I am lecturing. In the past year I purchased two different brand headphones with microphones that cost ~$25 to $35 from Amazon to use in Windows 10. Neither would work right. I could not hear myself speaking but …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[68,69,70],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tutorials-that-may-be-helpful","category-solutions-to-problems-i-found-helpful","tag-headphones","tag-usb","tag-widows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beausanders.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}