"Listen to this device" causes unacceptable audio delays

I wanted to setup a flight simulator and use a real headset for it but noticed that the Listen to this Device on my microphone comes with a slight delay that renders it unusable (as a side note, in a real cockpit, you listen to yourself speak through the headset without any delay and it really makes a difference in usability). I'm also starting to get into karaoke on my den's PC but notice that the Listen to this Device also has a delay which sounds like trash in addition to my out-of-tune singing voice.

Is there a way to fix this?

Basically you are asking can you use a computer as a PA - sing through a mic and it comes out of the speakers. The short answer is no.

The problem is that the mic signal goes through significant processing before it comes back out of the speakers - hence the delay. For karaoke, ideally you'd feed the mic into an external pre-amp/mixer (along with the pc karaoke output) and the output of the mixer goes to an audio power amp.

For your flight sim, one fix might be to get some USB headphones with an inline amp (in the lead). This means you hear yourself with no delay before the mic signal goes in the pc, but can also hear any pc generated sounds.

I used to do music home recording using Cubase and delay is a big problem. There's a thing called ASIO that somehow bypasses a lot of the motherboard stuff and can get latency down to 5-10 mS. When double tracking piano etc, even 10 milliseconds can be enough to 'throw' you.

There's a forum member Firebird who runs a recording studio. He might chime in with some suggestions or you could pm him.