Single-jack headset woes

[asearle]

Hallo Everyone,

On my old laptop I had a dual-jack headset (two plugs: one for audio out and the other for microphone). Everything worked fine and the quality was reasonable.

On both my new laptop and on my partner's laptop we have single-jacks (i.e. combined audio out and microphone) and I am having terrible trouble getting the microphone working.

I have tried several different headsets and have fished around in the sound-settings but, although the audio-out normally works OK, I get some very frustrating results with the microphone ...

- With some headsets microphone is recognised but there is only static
- Sometimes the microphone is recognised in configuration but cannot be assigned to the application (e.g. Skype)
- Sometimes the microphone is simply not recognised

I also tried with a USB-adaptor which seemed to work better (recognition was better) but I had to combine a number of adaptors which seemed to create a high level of static.

And I tried with an external blue-tooth handsfree unit ("S2G") but found I could only get the audio-out to work.

So we will probably have to use the onboard microphone and speaker but the quality is a not so good. That's a shame.

If anyone has any tips or links to HOWTOs, that would be very helpful.

Many thanks,
Alan in Cologne

[guiverc]

Many dual purpose headset/speakers use a 3 pin connector and not the standard stereo/2-pin connector found when there are separate headset & speaker outputs (ie. the combined plug contains two positives connections plus single common ground, in controls to the separate audio in/out plugs which have a positive & grounds each).

You are using the correct 3-pin connectors and not trying to use a 2-pin 3.5mm plug in the 3-pin jack?

[asearle]

I am definitely using the 3-pin (rather than 2-pin) connectors in the dual-purpose socket. And, indeed, the headsets I am testing with work fine in a mobile phone. They are just not properly detected/accepted on the two laptops I am testing with.

Very strange. Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
Alan

[asearle]

I found that the combined jack was extremely problematic. But we found a work-round: The audio-jack to USB adaptor works very well so we are using that now.

It's just a shame that normal combined smartphone-headsets seem to not work with either of our laptops. But with the USB-adaptor all is fine.

Yours,
Alan

PS: We had a lot of background noise at one point but this was because we were testing our audio in one room. Make sure that you are farther enough away that neither computer can pick up the other.

[him610]

combined audio out and microphone

I was under the impression that these combo jacks had four or five conductors which would require a splitter to facilitate use of separate headphone and microphone plugs.
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