Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Windows 7 does USB audio correctly

I wasn't too impressed with USB audio in Windows XP and Vista. I had to manually switch between audio outputs, and I saw a few blue screens when unplugging USB audio device.

USB audio finally works right in Windows 7. When a USB audio device is plugged in, audio output switches to that device. When the device is unplugged, audio output switches back. I can even use my USB wireless headphones to listen to line in on the motherboard. Most importantly of all, USB audio doesn't crash Windows 7.

2 comments:

Shawn @SIDONIEYANG said...

May I ask your advice?

I have Windows 7... but... when I go to "Playback Devices" in order to turn my "Playback" to USB out... it only shows "Speakers: Realtek" and that's it! No option to change it to USB audio out...

What I am trying to connect to is a mini hi-fi that accepts USB input, but does not come with any drivers...

Thanks for your help, if you can offer any!

Boris Gjenero said...

USB audio is a standard, so there shouldn't be any need to install drivers for your specific hardware. Are you sure the mini hi-fi supports USB audio? Maybe the USB port is only for copying sound files onto onboard memory or a card, for playback from the user interface of the mini hi-fi.