You only need to read this article if you have a USB headset for your PC which has an inline volume control on the cord. Otherwise, shoo. Be off!
I thought I’d share this technical problem. As I mentioned before I use a Plantronics DSP-400 headset for Skyping, but posh ordinary headphones for music. The default playback device in Windows is the normal PC speaker output, because some applications will only use the default Windows device and don’t give you an option to choose anything else.
Problem is this. The volume control on the cord doesn’t work. I spent ages trawling the forums and Plantronics support pages to find the answer. So here it is.
The volume control will only control the default Windows device, and doesn’t stick to controlling just the headset. Despite being in the cord of the headset as a digital substutute for an old-fashioned analogue potentiometer. No, there is no software update that fixes it. No, the “Let Skype adjust my sound device settings” tick box doesn’t over-ride this. No, Plantronics doesn’t think it’s a bug — their customer support believes it is a feature:
This is not a bug, the inline volume control for the headset is designed to adjust the master volume for the current default playback device. Under most installations the inline volume control is only used when the headset is set as the default playback device. I do understand what you would like to do with the inline control but presently there is no work around for installations such as yours using multiple playback devices.
So there you have it. Apparently if you have a USB headset you’re supposed to play everything through that.
The customer is always wrong.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 11:20 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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Sennheiser's USB headsets seem to be a different (better?) design then. The volume control is on the analogue side of the USB soundcard dongle, so only controls the sound into the headset, and does not try to second guess Windows.
Can certainly recommend the Sennheiser USB PC155s - brilliant for Skype/VoIP, and posh enough for music off the laptop or MP3 player!
Posted by: at December 20, 2005 09:55 PMIf you listen to music (like Last.fm) though your PC as well as using Skype, then just about all the solutions suck. I thought for a while that I needed a high end wireless stereo headset with built in boom mic. but that doesn't exist and doesn't look like it's going to exist any time soon. Even in low end form. The next try is going to be to use real speakers and then use a bluetooth headset for Skype.
BTW. Skype pauses Winamp which is great, it doesn't restart. And there's no support to pause iTunes (not that I use it).
And where's the feature or plug in that puts "currently playing" into your presence information. Every other IM system has had people build this. Which points up a bigger problem. For some reason the Skype API doesn't attract the same kind of playful code add ons that MSN and AIM attract. Why is that?
Glad to know it's not just me. I've tried everything I could think of including the absurdly bad PerSono software.
Posted by: at January 13, 2006 04:52 PMHi Martin, I saw a new headset that might do what you are looking for:
http://cms-basic.dk/www_cms/nextlink1/bluespoonspider.htm
I use a bluespoon AX headset in the car and I'm very pleased with it.
Posted by: at January 18, 2006 09:22 AMI have an USB Headset from GEMBIRD with inline volume control. I always wondered why I could not Skype: "problem with playback device" (even with the test call) and also why the volume could not to be controlled smoothly with the inline control.
However, you saved the day. I have now set Audio Out in Skype to Windows default device and finally the Skype problem seemed to be solved. Thanks.