Terrible audio quality from headset on Windows 10

Hi Mbathula,

Thanks for coming to the forums with your question. With recording your voice it will not do this through the game bar itself. You either have to do it through the Xbox companion app or have a capture card. As this guide for

setting up streaming windows 10 shows it will only record from the Microphone on the PC not the headset.

Recorded audio

Record game play with or without sounds from your game and your microphone, and choose the audio quality.

• To record game sounds with your game clips, turn on Record audio when I record a game.
• To choose a different audio quality than the default, select the Audio quality box and choose one of the options.
• To record through your microphone, turn on Record audio when I record a game.

Thanks,

Brad

Thanks for coming to the forums with your question. With recording your voice it will not do this through the game bar itself. You either have to do it through the Xbox companion app or have a capture card. As this guide for

setting up streaming windows 10 shows it will only record from the Microphone on the PC not the headset.

Recorded audio

Record game play with or without sounds from your game and your microphone, and choose the audio quality.

• To record game sounds with your game clips, turn on Record audio when I record a game.
• To choose a different audio quality than the default, select the Audio quality box and choose one of the options.
• To record through your microphone, turn on Record audio when I record a game.

Thanks Brad. I went to the Companion app and it redirects me to the Windows 10 settings that you outlined above. Based on this, looks like the microphone has to be connected to the PC to record my own voice. Is there a way I can request this as a feature?

Sounds coming from headphones and TV at the same time is normal for the console...the other day I left my stereo on (my TV is wired through it) and couldn't work out why the audio from my headphones sounded different!

As to the audio through a headset being lower quality, that would depend really....if the audio signal for the headset is coming directly from the Xbox (wireless headset or wired), then I'd argue it's better quality than that carried to the TV via the HDMI cable. For me, my wireless headset is plugged into my controller (using an adapter) and the sound quality is miles better than the TV is capable of (is even better than my very good stereo too)

To ensure that the hands-free audio on your bluetooth headset is not used on your Windows 10 PC, especially as you jump from one gaming program to another, you'll want to also disable the hands-free audio microphone under the Recording tab in the Sound Control Panel.

On Windows 10:

1. Select Start
   
2. Type in Sound Settings
   
3. Hit Enter
   
4. On the far right, under "Related Settings", locate and select Sound Control Panel
   
5. Select the Recorcing tab
   
6. Locate the bluetooth headset's microphone
   
7. Disable it
   

I also have a bluetooth headset that I prefer to use with my desktop microphone for the audio quality, but I don't like the hands-free audio either. Because the headphones change to the hands-free audio when the microphone enters use, whenever I would switch to Discord, that microphone would get triggered, and it would change the audio over to that mode on the headset even if I had disabled that audio in the Playback tab in Sound Control Panel.

It's the little hiccups.

Hopefully this helps and clarifies, and let me know if this doesn't solve your problem.

To me the biggest thing preventing more people from enjoying headset gaming is the absolutely horrible audio quality of most gaming headsets. The best gaming headset is just a good pair of headphones and a good mic. To me the two exceptions to this are
the Sennheiser PC37x (with 3.5mm cable for console gaming) and the Plantronics Rig range. The majority of headsets “made for gaming” are either overpriced or below par for quality in similarly priced audio gear.