The problem – Imagine you are listening to melodious music on your Windows 10 PC/laptop/tablet using a headphone, and one of your family members also wants to listen to the music at the same time, but he/she doesn’t prefer using a headphone.
Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to use speakers and headphones at the same time on a Windows 10 PC? Yes, it’s possible to simultaneously use headphones and speakers at the same time in Windows 10 without having to install additional programs.
Steps to use both headphone and speaker at the same time
In this guide, we are going to show how to use speakers and headphones at the same time in Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7.
Step 1: Connect your headphone to your PC and make sure that the speakers are also connected. Before proceeding to the next step, make sure that your PC’s speaker and connected headphone are properly connected.
Step 2: Right-click on the volume icon in the taskbar and then click Sounds option to open Sounds dialog. Alternatively, type mmsys.cpl in the Start/taskbar search and press the Enter key to open the Sounds dialog.
And if the Volume icon is not appearing in the system tray of the taskbar, please refer to our volume icon missing from Windows 10 taskbar guide.
Step 3: Under the Playback tab, right-click on your speaker and then click Set as Default Device option to make it default. If the Default Device option is missing or greyed out, then it’s likely because the speaker is already the default audio device on your PC, and you can skip to the next step.
Also, you will see Default Device entry just below the device, as shown in the picture above.
Step 4: Switch to the Recording tab by clicking on the same.
Step 5: Right-click on your microphone or Stereo Mix and click Properties.
Step 6: Click on the Listen tab. Here, check the box labeled Listen to this device. Select your headphone from Playback through this device drop-down dialog.
Step 7: Click the Apply button. That’s it! The sound should now be coming from both your headphone as well as speakers.
If both headphone and speaker are not playing the sound at the same time, please check if your have actually set Speaker as the default device (and not default communication device).
Gus says
THIS NO LONGER WORKS AS WINDOW DID AN UPDATE AND STUFFED UP THE SOUND SETTINGS NOW WHEN YOU PLUG A SET OF HEADPHONES INTO THE FRONT JACK THE SPEAKERS DONT WORK FROM THE REAR JACKS
Joe says
Yeah it worked until I noticed that I was getting feedback between my microphone and my speakers! I don’t wanna listen to my microphone I wanna listen to my headset.
Kevin May says
There is no Listen tab!
Grant says
@Trisse good one. I had the same issue
TUSHAR GUJARATHI says
In my case i have JBL Tube500bt Bluetooth Device and when i connect to Dell Laptop, it works for sometime but after sometime voice kind of breaks and unable to hear voice.
Please suggest what can be done here, appreciate help.
Tushar
jake says
ADVICE IS OUT-OF-DATE FOR WINDOWS 10
Jor-El says
Hello, thanks for this article. I wonder if this will also work with a Bluetooth speaker?
Fernan says
That really works! But I have some problem with the timing. There’s a delay between my speaker and headphone like a half a second or so.
Manoj says
Thanks for very good step by step explanation
indica says
I can feel the bass while i have my headphones on :)
curtis olson says
followed the steps but when i go to microphone properties then listen my headphones are not listed as an option just the speakers
Joel says
All this article is doing is getting whatever microphone you have to pickup the ambient room noise and replay it through your headphones.
Not a great article/solution.
Mike says
Find the user Douglas A. Mayes above. He has it on point. It worked. I’ll copy and paste for future reference.
1. Connect your speakers and heaphones each to your computer.
2. Right click on Volume Mixer icon in bottom right of Windows and select “Sounds” from menu.
3. Open “Playback” tab and right click on your speakers from list and select “Set as Default Device” from menu.
4. Open “Recording” tab and right click on “Stereo Mix” from list and select “Enable” from menu.
4. In the same tab, right click on “Stereo Mix” from list and select “Properties” from menu.
5. In the new window, open “Listen” tab and check the box next to “Listen to this device”, then select your headphones from the drop-down list below and click the “Apply” box to the bottom right.
mr.bigchoco says
@Brad Thanks a lot. I have been trying to solve this issue for a long time now. And instead of using an audio splitter and losing volume I can enable the stereo mix (of course!) and use a usb adapter as my second audio output. Perfect for gaming now.
mb says
Thank you. Procedure works, except that I didn’t (have to) execute steps 4 and following. Occasionally, my PC forgets these settings, soI have to do it again. I’ve now saved this URL for future reference.
Bill says
Interesting to suggest connecting both headphones and speakers into the only single jack on the laptop (without also mentioning a dual external port which is not the case here.)
Jibbers Crabst says
@beth Try your RealTek HD Audio Manager program. You can reassign audio ports as well as change your settings so as to get the back audio ports to play the same as the front, or separate the streams. My PC is borked and my Laptop doesn’t show this in the UI, so I can’t post a screenie.
beth says
I have the dell XPS8920 PC with 3 audio ports which allows/allocate for a 5.1 channel setup, with
Front L/R surround line-out port
Connect audio-output devices such as speakers and amplifiers. In a 5.1 speaker channel setup, connect the front-left and front-right speakers.
Rear L/R surround port
Connect audio-output devices such as speakers and amplifiers. In a 5.1 speaker channel setup, connect the rear-left and rear-right speakers.
Center/subwoofer LFE surround port
Connect the subwoofer.
==========
My issue is that I cant use 2 different speakers at same time, I tried to aux in ONE speaker to the front port, tested it and worked, and tried to configure to have another speaker n aux into rear audio port, test it work, but when I tried with 2 speakers to output sound, only the front (green color port) works
Since this is meant for 5.1 channel surround sound setup, i think its meant for speakers that have satellites with 3 color aux cables to use as such. Do you have any experience to configure 2 different brand speakers to 2 audio ports and make them work well?
=====
I have the dell SE2417HG monitor which also has an audio out port. I tried connecting my 2nd speaker there and enable the use of dell se2417HG under sound control panel. tested it and configure it, works well, tested against youtube only my main speaker connected to PC audio port (green, front speaker port) works, the speaker connected to monitor didnt.
====
Would greatly appreciate some help, I posted my issue to windows forum and got bunch of rubbishy replies
Nick says
Oops! … my laptop speaker output was set to too low…. well that solves the low volume problem… smile
but still what cause that humming sound at high levels and how to remedy it. :)
Nick says
Well here everything working but problem is my bluetooth sony woofer picking mic noise as well some kuk ku thing. :)
Tried to adjust level says 20 default but them mic voice goes to low… which already not that normal loud. I mean u have to drop down woofer sound or mic level here… which reduces the output drastically. Any ideas how can I remove that koooing interference?
Too many cooks in this kitchen says
Please just remove this article from the web. It is the first thing in a search and it does not work properly at all especially the way you have attempted to make it. People actually have microphones nowadays and because of those all kinds of things happen when attempting any of the solutions here and in the comments. I find it very bad business practice that you still keep this up and heve also not ever attempted to fix it at least. I am definitely emailing someone there to hopefully take notice of this since I am sure that ignorance on your part is the only reason that it is still wrong. ( I don’t mean ignorance in a bad form though, just as in not knowing about it)
Douglas A. Mayes says
“Brad says
December 24, 2017 at 3:37 am
Do everything he said except instead of right clicking on microphone and setting that to listen, right click and click to show disabled devices. Then right click on stereo mix and enable it, once you have enabled stereo mix set it up just like this post said to do with the microphone settings and it should work.”
This worked for me ^^^, but if you’re still confused after reading Brad’s description then just do as follows:
1. Connect your speakers and heaphones each to your computer.
2. Right click on Volume Mixer icon in bottom right of Windows and select “Sounds” from menu.
3. Open “Playback” tab and right click on your speakers from list and select “Set as Default Device” from menu.
4. Open “Recording” tab and right click on “Stereo Mix” from list and select “Enable” from menu.
4. In the same tab, right click on “Stereo Mix” from list and select “Properties” from menu.
5. In the new window, open “Listen” tab and check the box next to “Listen to this device”, then select your headphones from the drop-down list below and click the “Apply” box to the bottom right.
You should now have system sound through your speakers and your headphones without picking up your mic.
nemo says
this is the stupidest thing article ever. someone needed a quick paycheck.
this is equivalent of setting up a camera to record your monitor to play back on a another monitor, so you can have dual screen duplication.
Skardi Hrothgarsson says
Does not work. i’m using an ATAPI connector on a laptop, and would rather use my condenser mic over the crappy one i have attached to this thing. And a side note to everyone else who reads this: that last step is just to see if it works by sending audio from your mic to your earphones and speakers. enable it to see if it works (by ticking the check box and hitting Apply, not OK), and then disable by reversing that action.
Bill Software says
Awesome. Sound quality drops off, but hey, i have a visual spectrum led box and needed this setup to listen via headphones and to see the display. This worked perfect. Again the sound degrades for some reason, but this trick works.
Duong Nguyen says
The instructions does not work on DELL 6540.
grayson says
Wesley Clark says
July 8, 2017 at 1:50 am
Doesn’t work, this instead only has my headset playing sound it pics up from the mic into my ears. It will not play the system audio such as the song or game I am listening to on my speakers. same thing happened to me
Brad says
One other problem I have run into is that if you run this setup but like to record gameplay or anything of that sort, it will pickup two separate audio files. One coming from you speakers and the other from your headset that is listening to the speakers, with a small amount of lag between them which causes an echo in the recording. Is there any other way to set up both at the same time without the headset listening to another audio port, a way to open all audio ports at the same time?
Brad says
Do everything he said except instead of right clicking on microphone and setting that to listen, right click and click to show disabled devices. Then right click on stereo mix and enable it, once you have enabled stereo mix set it up just like this post said to do with the microphone settings and it should work.
James Reinhardt says
I am encountering the same problem as below
Wesley Clark says
July 8, 2017 at 1:50 am
Doesn’t work, this instead only has my headset playing sound it pics up from the mic into my ears. It will not play the system audio such as the song or game I am listening to on my speakers.
Trisse says
February 23, 2017 at 11:13 pm
But what if I don’t want to listen to myself?
Callan says
January 2, 2017 at 3:21 am
I’ve followed your instructions and have encountered a problem. the audio plays through my speakers as intended, however my headphones now play the audio being picked up from my microphone.
please respond soon. its annoying hearing myself type through my headset.
Hannah Chynoweth says
nope. Not working. I used to have all my sound coming through my headphones and my speakers, now it’s one or the other, I can switch via pulling my headphone dongle, or by switching my default in the Sound Playback menu, but i hate this set up because Final Fantasy XIV is stupid in that it gets “stuck” on whatever WAS the default, so i have to reboot that game to get the sound to switch. Really inconvenient when ij ust want to take my headset off and listen through speakers with out having to restart the game. This problem began after the latest windows update, I even lost my realtek HD audio manager.. i did a system restore to before the update, got my audio manager back, Shit’s still stupid and not working right. My headphones don’t even show up as an option in my realtek audio manager.
Beth says
Hi I got the dell SE2417HG monitor which also has an speaker line out port. In addition I have got the Dell XPS8920 win10, 64bit machine 8gm RAM, which has 1) headphone port, 1) microphone port in front panel of CPU tower, and 3 audio ports at the back a) Front L/R audio out (green port) b) Rear L/R audio (black port) c) Subwoofer (yellow port) which used a 5.1 channel sound system.
What can i do to my monitor’s speaker port? can i actually place another speaker there/headset there? This article did address my issues as i was considering buying a headset for games/skype chat etc, as well as watching moves. I didnt realise i could also configure speakers + headset together. I needed speakers so that i can watch movies on my PC together with my sister. Had I known this i would have gone ahead to buy a headset.
Now i have a bluetooth speaker which has a USB in for charging (and used USB type C 5v for charging on its own back port, USB cable has 2 heads, USB 3.0 and USB type C) as well as an aux cable. I plugged the speakers aux cable into audio port (green color at the back of the CPU tower) as advised by seller for that speaker. I also had a mini portable speaker that i plug into the front mic port of Tower.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-24-monitor-se2417hg/apd/210-ahhq/monitors-monitor-accessories
John Smith says
thanks a bunch! It worked for me! I don’t have a mic plugged in and my headphones don’t have a mic. I had under “Recording->Stereo Mix” and I was able to output to “Headphones”. I was looking for something like this because before, I had to manually switch from speakers to headphones thru Win10. But now best of both worlds!
Wesley Clark says
Doesn’t work, this instead only has my headset playing sound it pics up from the mic into my ears. It will not play the system audio such as the song or game I am listening to on my speakers.
Trisse says
But what if I don’t want to listen to myself?
Callan says
I’ve followed your instructions and have encountered a problem. the audio plays through my speakers as intended, however my headphones now play the audio being picked up from my microphone.
please respond soon. its annoying hearing myself type through my headset.
Techland says
Thanks for this tip, really interesting. Note thast you above scrteenshits (and text) are not to undersatand at all, from a logical perspective. IN the German version the text is ‘Dieses Gerät als Wiedergabequelle verwenden’, which translates to ‘Use this devic e as playback source’. That makes sense. ‘Listen to this device’ doesn’t make ANY sense.