Expert: Steven L Smith - 6/1/2007

Question
We purchased a home theater system and can't get our voices to project through our speakers using a microphone. I need to know if we need to purchase another piece of equipment or if we just do not know what we are doing!

We have a Yamaha Natural sound AV receiver HTR-5890 cinema DSP THX surround ex sellect DTS, an HP media center computer, DVD player, Dish system and Monster surge protecter all connected to a plasma. The speakers connected to the unit are 2 Klipsch 3ft tall, 1 Klipsch rectangular speaker which provides bass, a center Bose, and 2 rear bose that are about 1'x 1' in size. (I am trying to give you all of the details.)


We have plugged a handheld microphone into the computer and it will record our voice but not project our voice through the speaker. We have also plugged it into the receiver. We will play an accompaniment cd in the computer or the dvd and it comes through the speakers, but not our voice. All of the equipment was professionally installed. No one seems to know the problem. I know the microphones work because they work on a portable karaoke system. Is it the equipment, do I need to buy something else or do we just not know that we are doing?

Thanks!


Answer
Hi Nicole,

Sounds like you have a nice system!

What you're describing is referred to as "microphone pass-through," and it's unfortunately not supported by all computer sound cards. For whatever reason, it's generally not supported by *newer* soundcards (all of the older soundcards I've used in the past support it just fine).  (I know, it's weird!)

To check if your soundcard supports it, try the following:
1.) Open up the windows sound mixer by double-clicking on the speaker icon on the bottom left of the screen (if there's no icon, go to start->settings->control panel->sounds and audio devices)

2.) Go to the options menu and select properties

3.) Make sure "playback" is selected

4.) Look through the checkboxes to see if "microphone" is one of the options. If it's not checked, check the box and then click ok to exit this menu. You'll then see a slider and mute button appear on the mixer.  Unmute the microphone and move the slider up. Try it out.

5.) If there's no microphone option in #4, go back to options--> properties and select "recording".  You may be able to apply step #4 under the "recording" option.

6.) If neither one works, your sound card doesn't support microphone pass-through, and you will need to buy a microphone preamplifier from an audio shop (probably $50-$100) and connect it to your receiver. Then, connect the microphone to the microphone pre amplifier. If you don't want to do that, you can buy a powered microphone that integrates the pre amp into the microphone.  The karaoke system you used the microphone successfully on most likely had a pre amp built in.  Make sure you can return the equipment to the store you buy it from so that if it doesn't work the first time, you can keep trying different things until something works!

Good Luck!