Sound Settings on Windows: Which Slider You Need

Your sound is coming out of the wrong thing, or one app is silent while everything else is fine. Both come back to the same place, and it is not the volume key.

Sound arriving somewhere you did not choose is annoying, and it is usually not a fault. Windows simply has more output devices than most people know they own.

Three settings cover nearly all of it. Let me take you to each one and say what it is really for.

Your PC has more outputs than you think it does

Start here, because this is why sound arrives somewhere you did not choose.

Ours, and read off the desktop I am typing this on. Listing the audio endpoints returned five of them, on a machine with one pair of speakers.

⭐ Speakers, a monitor over HDMI, a microphone, and two more added by a manufacturer utility. The vendor tool had inserted its own noise-cancelling input and output, so they appear in every list alongside the real hardware.

⚡ You can read yours the same way. Open PowerShell and run:

Get-PnpDevice -Class AudioEndpoint | Select-Object FriendlyName, Status

⚡ It needs no administrator rights and changes nothing. It is a read, and it takes about five seconds.

⛔ So "the sound is going to the wrong place" is usually literal. Windows picked one of five and it was not the one you meant.

Setting where sound comes out

The first of the three, and the one that fixes most of this.

Documented by Microsoft: "Select Start > Settings > System > Sound."

Pick your device under Output. That is the system default from then on.

⭐ The taskbar speaker icon does the same thing faster. Click it, then the arrow beside the volume slider. Choose from the list.

⚠️ A monitor with no speakers still appears as an output. Sending sound to it is silent. It looks like a fault, and it is the commonest version of this.

Per-app volume, which is a separate screen

The second one, and the one almost nobody opens until they need it.

Microsoft's route on Windows 11, from its app audio page: "Select Start > Settings > System > Sound. Select Volume mixer."

And the different route on Windows 10: "Right-click the Volume icon on the taskbar. Select Open Volume mixer."

⭐ Every app that has made a sound gets its own slider. Say one app sits at ten percent. The system is at eighty. That is what you hear when only one app goes quiet.

⭐ It also sets the output per app. Microsoft's instruction is to "confirm the correct Output device is selected for the affected app", which means a browser can play to headphones while a game plays to speakers.

⚡ That last part is genuinely useful. Ours: game to the speakers. Chat to the headset. No switching mid-session.

The routes are not the same on Windows 10

Worth its own line, because instructions written for one break on the other.

⛔ Windows 10 has no Volume mixer inside Settings. It lives on the taskbar icon. Any instruction sending you to Settings, System, Sound for it was written for Windows 11.

⚠️ Enhancements moved too. On Windows 10 it is the Playback tab, Properties, Enhancements, then Disable all enhancements. On Windows 11 it is Audio enhancements under the device itself.

⭐ Microsoft is direct about why that matters: enhancements can "reduce or distort output volume". If your sound is not just quiet but wrong, that has its own order.

Volume is at 100 and it is still too quiet

The complaint that sends people looking for a setting that does not exist.

⭐ Check the app slider and the system slider are both up. Microsoft says to make sure the sliders for "the system and the affected app" are raised and not muted. Two sliders multiply. Eighty percent of fifty percent is quiet.

⚠️ Then check the device rather than Windows. A laptop speaker has a ceiling. No setting raises it.

⚡ Ours, and marked as ours: plug in headphones for ten seconds as a test. Loud in headphones and quiet on the speakers is hardware, and no more settings work is going to help.

⛔ If it is quiet in one app only, that is the Volume mixer above, not a fault.

The old sound control panel is still there

Because a lot of advice you will find points at it and the new Settings page does not have everything.

Windows key and R, then `mmsys.cpl`, then Enter.

⭐ That opens the four-tab dialog with Playback, Recording, Sounds and Communications. It has been the same since Windows 7. It still works on 11.

⚡ The Recording tab shows inputs Settings hides, including disabled and disconnected ones. That is where a missing microphone usually turns up.

⚠️ Ours: use it when Settings does not list a device you know is plugged in. For everyday changes, the new page is better.

Mono audio, and who it is actually for

Short, and worth knowing exists.

⭐ Ours, and marked as ours: Settings, Accessibility, Audio has a mono switch that combines the left and right channels.

⭐ It is not only an accessibility setting. One working earbud, one broken speaker, or a headset with a dead side all become usable with it on.

⚠️ It does flatten stereo everywhere, so turn it back off when the reason has gone.

What none of these sliders will do

Being honest about the limits, because people keep looking.

⛔ No setting makes a speaker louder than it is built to be. Volume boosters that promise otherwise add distortion. Not volume.

⚠️ And none of them fix a driver that is not loaded. If the output list is empty rather than wrong, this page is not the answer.

⭐ Ours: work in this order. Which device, then per-app, then enhancements. Three checks, and you will know within two minutes which half of the problem you have.

Status: walked through on both Windows 11 and Windows 10, 24 August 2026. Microsoft documents the Settings, System, Sound route, the Volume mixer inside Settings on 11 and on the taskbar icon on 10, the per-app output device instruction, both sliders needing to be raised, and the statement that enhancements can reduce or distort output volume. The five endpoints were read here.

How do I change which speakers Windows uses?

Go to Start, Settings, System, Sound and pick the device under Output. Faster still, click the taskbar speaker icon and use the arrow beside the volume slider. A monitor with no speakers still shows up as an output, which is the usual cause.

How do I change the volume of one app in Windows?

Open the Volume mixer. On Windows 11 it is Settings, System, Sound, Volume mixer. On Windows 10, right-click the volume icon on the taskbar and choose Open Volume mixer. Every app that has made a sound gets its own slider there.

Can I send one app to headphones and another to speakers?

Yes. In the Volume mixer, each app has its own Output device setting. Microsoft's own troubleshooting tells you to confirm the correct output device per app, which is the same control.

Why is my sound quiet when the volume is at 100?

Because two sliders multiply. The system volume and the app volume are separate, and a low app slider makes everything quiet regardless of the main one. If both are up, test with headphones. Loud there means the speakers are the limit.

The Short Version

• A typical PC has several audio outputs. Five showed up on the machine tested here.
• Get-PnpDevice -Class AudioEndpoint lists yours, with no admin rights and nothing changed.
• Output device lives in Settings, System, Sound, or on the taskbar speaker icon.
• Volume mixer holds a slider per app, and an output device per app as well.
• On Windows 10 the mixer is on the taskbar icon, not in Settings.
• Microsoft states audio enhancements can reduce or distort output volume.
• mmsys.cpl still opens the old four-tab dialog and shows devices Settings hides.
• Mono audio in Accessibility rescues one dead earbud or one dead speaker.

Where to Next

Run the one line command and look at how many outputs your PC actually reports. That single list explains most of what feels random about Windows sound.

Then open the Volume mixer once, even if nothing is wrong. Knowing it exists is what saves you the next time one app goes quiet on its own.

If your sound is wrong rather than quiet, work through the fault order instead. This page is about the settings, not about a broken output.

And if a manufacturer utility on your machine added audio devices you never asked for, tell me which one in the comments. That list is worth building and nobody publishes it.