System Pref Sound question

Not directly. You could try the following workaround--I can't guarantee that this will work, but let us know if it does, and we may get a hint for the main page out of it.

1. You must be running Tiger. This will not work in previous versions of OS X. Launch Tiger's Audio MIDI Setup from your /Applications/Utilities folder.

2. From Audio MIDI Setup's Audio pulldown menu, select "Open Aggregate Device Editor".

3. In the Aggregate Device Editor sheet which appears, click the + icon next to the label "Add and remove aggregate devices on your computer. The name will appear "Aggregate Device". Click on this and change the name to "USB Headset", or whatever name you want to give the headset.

4. Below, check the box in the "Use" column next to your Unknown USB Audio Device. Since this is the only device that you will be "aggregating", you will NOT need to check the Resample box, and doing so will probably cause some kind of extra processing, so I would not advise checking the Resample box. Now, click Done.

5. You will now be able to set properties for the USB Headset (as you've now named it) in Audio MIDI Setup, and in the Sound Preferences panel. Test this new device, and tell us if it works properly.

Trevor

Thanks for the advice. I had a problem though. See the attached file. You will notice that I have two incidents of Unknown USB Audio Device. With my configuration set up as depicted in this file, when i go into Skype and set USB Headset as the defaults, the sound sounds like Donald Duck ( sped up sound), when running the Skype Sound Test Service.

When I reset the Skype prefs to Unknown USB Audio Device for both input/output, the sound is fine.

Any idea what else I should try?

Thanks for your help!!

Yes, one of the incidents of the Unknown USB Audio Device is input, one is output. It has one channel of input (i.e. mono microphone) where In=1 Out=0, and two (i.e. stereo headphones) output where In=0 Out=2.

Maybe it would be more clear if you made two aggregate devices, and explicitly labelled them as "USB Headset Microphone" for the input channel, and "USB Headset Headphones" for the output channels.

Try that and tell us if it helps.

Trevor

That worked. I tried the Skype Sound Test Service and it worked fine. Now, at least I know what is what. Thanks so much for all of your help!!

I still have the Unknown USB Audio Device listed in my Sound System Pref. Is there any way to get rid of it so that all I see is USB Headset Microphone and USB Headset Headphones?

No, I don't know of any way to do that.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor. I use an external radio for my sound output.

Is there a way to have the sound output directed to my external radio and my usb headset at the same time?

I see that you've got Soundflower already installed. I've not played with Soundflower enough to know, but that would be the first place I'd try. Set output to Soundflower, then see if you can configure Soundflower to send to both your external radio and your USB headset.

Trevor