External Microphone Mystery in Windows 8.1

[Hugh_Mungus]

Why would an external microphone produce an entry in both the Sound Recording tab AND the Sound Playback tabs of the Sounds application in Windows 8.1 Control Panel? It makes perfect sense for there to be an entry in Sound Recording but I'm baffled by the entry in Sound Playback. As soon as I plug the microphone in, I get a new entry in Playback that says: Speakers - C-Media USB Audio Device - Ready.

The microphone is a CAD U7 USB model. If there's an actual speaker on this microphone, I can't find it nor can I imagine why you'd put a speaker on a microphone. It's still rather new and has not been extensively used. I just made a recording with the microphone using a freeware sound application called Power Sound Editor and it seems to be working just fine. I'm just baffled by this Playback entry.

The reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem with a videoconferencing application called Fuze. For some reason, whenever I plug the external mike in while using Fuze, all audio from the other participant in the meeting is cut off; he can still hear me but I can't hear anything from him. As soon as I unplug the external mike, he can hear me again (through the internal mike on my laptop).

I really like Fuze and it works great with my internal mike and internal webcam. But I want to start using it in a monthly meeting where several people in a largish meeting room are going to be one one side of the videoconference so I need to get an external webcam and an external mike connected so that everyone can be seen and heard. (The external webcam works fine but its mike isn't very good so I'm trying to set up a separate external mike.)

It seems to me that the unexpected Sound Playback entry for the external mike may provide a clue of some kind to the failure of the mike when used with Fuze. (Unfortunately, Fuze Tech Support has NOT been of much use in this matter so I'm digging for answers on my own.)

I'd really appreciate the guidance of the experts here on how to figure out this problem.

 

[lfkfkfkffs]

Some usb microphones actually have that problem, if the mic has drivers just try updating them, and then disable the mic as an audio output device. This isn't really all that complicated, if you have a pair of old headphones and you plug them into the mic port on the computer and you start talking into them it will act as a mic.

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

Some usb microphones actually have that problem, if the mic has drivers just try updating them, and then disable the mic as an audio output device. This isn't really all that complicated, if you have a pair of old headphones and you plug them into the mic port on the computer and you start talking into them it will act as a mic.

Are you saying that USB headphones (a device WITHOUT a microphone, as opposed to a headset which has speakers for each ear AND a microphone) will have an entry in the Recording tab even though they have no input device? If so - and I don't have any USB headphones to try this with - I find that bizarre. Why would Windows and/or the hardware maker create entries that are completely irrelevant?

I realize it isn't you creating these superfluous entries ;-) I'm just puzzled by why anyone would do such a thing. I'm a programmer myself and have always been conditioned to stay away from writing code that does more than what is necessary. Creating and managing irrelevant entries just seems silly to me.

Still, if you're sure that the extra entry isn't going to cause me any actual grief, then I can just write this off as another one of life's little imponderables.....

 

[lfkfkfkffs]

If you take apart a cheap pair of headphone speakers, and a cheap mic they have really similar parts. It has been around ever since computers have had microphones and headphone ports. There might be something else going on, but you might want to give the manufacture a call.