How To Use A Mobile Headset Microphone With A Desktop PC

You've invested a lot of money in a quality pair of headphones with a built-in mic for your phone. Wouldn't it be great if you could use it for gaming or VOIP calls on your desktop PC? Good news: it is possible.

The big hurdle to using your cute headphones or earbuds with a desktop computer is that most full-sized desktop computers separate headphone and microphone jacks, while phones and laptops combine them into one 3 .5 mm orifice. So you can either plug them into a desktop computer's headphone audio-out port and listen, or plug them into the microphone-in port and use them to talk, but not both.

You can use Bluetooth if your earbuds have it, but that connection is for mobile devices and isn't exactly up to par in terms of latency or quality. Luckily, high-end Bluetooth headphones usually have a line-in option that makes them hard-wired for older gadgets and times when the battery dies. We suggest you use it for all PC applications.

Fortunately, the solution to this problem is simple. If your PC doesn't offer a combo headphone in/out jack, you can get a cheap adapter that splits the signal in two: the audio going to your headset drivers and the audio coming from the microphone.

< p>Here's one on Amazon for $6

for this exact situation.

Once you have your cable adapter, simply plug your headphones into the female port and the male ports into the appropriate jacks on your computer. These are usually color coded - pink for microphone, green for headphones or speakers - if they don't have icons near the port. Then choose the right audio sources in Windows, and you're good to go.

These adapters aren't 100% guaranteed to work: there's enough variation between mobile headphones that you might experience an incompatible pairing. But they're cheap enough that it's not a big deal if you're unlucky. If you want something a little more reliable with simple controls for volume and mute, you can get an inexpensive USB sound card. Some models,

like this one

, add the combo port that your desktop lacks.

It's a shame there's no software solution to this problem, but a few bucks for extra hardware is a small price to be able to use your headphones (and their built-in mic) everywhere.

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How To Use A Mobile Headset Microphone With A Desktop PC

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