W10 seeing speakers and headphones as same device  

My old Surface Pro/W10 setup saw the speakers and headphone as separate things; so when I plugged in my headphones it would revert to the settings previously in use. So I used to have my speakers muted to avoid annoying colleagues with system sounds, then W10 would automatically unmute when I plugged my headphones in.

My new Dell XPS appears to see the speakers and headphones as the same device ("Speakers/Headphones" in control panel, as opposed to separate devices on my SP). So I have to constantly remember to mute/unmute depending on what I'm doing.

Is this a limitation of the chipset of the Dell, or a setting in Windows, or something else? It's really basic functionality so I'm amazed it isn't available on my new machine.

Win ver 1909; build 18363.657

Thanks

what is the model number of your Dell XPS, wanstronian?

the speakers and headphones showing as the same device on the Dell computer is a limitation of the audio driver because Dell chose to have that while your Surface Pro device has different audio options/features

How many ohm's are speakers and headphones as that may cause it

Samuria said:

How many ohm's are speakers and headphones as that may cause it

what???

Conventionally, Headset/Headphones are about 30 Ω impedance, Line output (for speakers) is about 600 Ω impedance.

The Audio chipset detects what it is to adjust the output level. It should disconnect the internal speakers with either plugged in. That should be "normal". My Laptop is certainly like that.

Dell do have a tendency to do things a bit differently. I would search their forums. Someone on here may have already done so.

CountMike said:

Only way an audio device can distinguish what is plugged in is it's impedance measured in Ohms. There are high an low impedance speakers (usually low) but earphones and microphones can some with low and high impedance varieties.

I have never thought about that. Interesting.

erpster4 said:

the speakers and headphones showing as the same device on the Dell computer is a limitation of the audio driver because Dell chose to have that while your Surface Pro device has different audio options/features

here's what I have on a relative's very old Dell Inspiron 580 desktop computer using Realtek Audio drivers (traditional/legacy HDA version) with the Realtek HD Audio Manager control panel app:



see - Speakers / Headphones is shown as the same audio output device

Since Realtek is a fabless chipset maker, OEM's can customize anything they want for a few cents less.

All the Realtek chipsets have jack presence sensing capabilities, but SOME chipsets do NOT have impedance sensing capabilities. ALC662 see 8.24 and 8.25.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/datas...aSheet_1.3.pdf

So in many of these cases, the OEM will

(1) disable front panel retasking (headphone jack is a headphone jack and cannot retask into a mic jack for example)
(2) tie up the speakers in the back panel and headphones in the front panel together

The end result is that when you plug in a pair of headphones in the front panel, the audio driver will know that you plug in a pair of headphones and will change from offering you virtual surround speakers to headphone virtualization in the Realtek Audio Console.

But because the chipset doesn't have impedance sensing capabilities, you end up having to reduce the headphone volume manually down to 5 on the slider in order not to damage your hearing. When you unplug your headphones, you have to increase the speaker volume up in order to hear anything.