# Obs audio output



## 226cenk (Sep 23, 2020)

Hello. I have been at this for days and hours. I am trying to take OBS's audio output and broadcast it to my speakers. I know that 'monitor and output' lets you broadcast the audio to youtube or some other streaming site, but is there a way to broadcast the audio from OBS to my speakers aswell?

Currently anytime that I want to listen into the audio source I have to go into window's sound control panel and un(tick) 'Listen to this device' on the virtual cable to toggle the source. My end goal of this whole ordeal is having OBS as my sole control panel and not have an external program like voicemeter to handle it. In place of voicemeter however, I use window's built in sound system to route all of my audio.

I have tried setting OBS's output to a virtual cable via windows' audio settings and enabling 'Listen to this device', but... I guess I got my hope up that it would work. For some reason even though obs has sound running through it, it doesn't want to output any sound that it has processed.....

Please help. Any and all help will be GREATLY appreciated. I really want to get this working.


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## koala (Sep 23, 2020)

OBS is no replacement for your local Windows audio mixer. The issue with this, as well as any external mixing software like Voicemeeter: it's working only, if the mixer app is running. And you don't want to run OBS just to get access to all audio on your system, I suppose.

I propose a completely different approach. Don't start OBS Studio at all. Use only Windows as Windows audio mixer.
Configure Windows audio in a way every audio device you intend to capture with OBS Studio has one audio source only. To achieve this, you may need to indeed install some virtual audio devices. For every app you want to have a separate audio track in OBS later, install one virtual audio device and configure the app to output its audio to its virtual audio device. To make these apps audible without OBS, configure their virtual audio device and enable the "Listen to this device" option and direct the output to your speakers. Sometimes, "Listen to this device" doesn't work immediately. Windows is sometimes refusing to activate it. Toggle it, close Windows audio mixer, re-open to make it work. Sometimes it only works after a reboot.

After you did this and are able to hear everything fine, start OBS and configure all your audio devices in Settings->Audio. The only device you don't need to configure here is the Windows speaker device, as long as your apps all output their audio to some other (virtual) device, and you're redirecting their audio to the speaker through "Listen to this device".

Don't configure any monitoring within OBS, because you already hear everything through Windows. You should use monitoring within OBS only for balancing the audio levels for your recordings, but not as regular sound output. You need a different audio device for monitoring than your speakers to avoid double output: some headset. Configure this headset as monitoring device within OBS and activate monitoring for your sources.


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## 226cenk (Sep 24, 2020)

I am pretty sure I have all that configured. All I want is to be able to set obs audio to 'monitor and output' and have it output as it does to any streaming service to my speakers.


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## 226cenk (Sep 24, 2020)

I personally use obs as a webcam. I have the virtual audio device called 'Virtual mic pass-through' as shown in my attachments as my monitor to transmit the audio to web conferencing apps and things I then enabled 'monitor only' which allows audio to get monitored by the apps that I use to voice call and such.

My question is can I get 'monitor and output' to output the audio as it monitors to voice call apps?


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## koala (Sep 24, 2020)

You didn't mention the virtual webcam. This is different. In this case, if you want to output mixed audio from OBS to your webcam, you can use the monitoring feature to a virtual audio device. Everything you set to monitor only or monitor and output. What you monitor goes to the monitoring device, and what you output goes to a recorded video file or to a stream. The monitoring device is the device you use for zoom.

You can set every source in OBS to one of the two monitoring options and the audio will go to the monitoring device. You only need to make sure you don't use the monitoring device as source anywhere in OBS, because OBS stops outputting in that case to avoid a feedback loop.


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## 226cenk (Sep 24, 2020)

Yes.... I am aware.... I am just wonder/wanting if there is a way to output the audio that streams get and also have it output to my speakers.

I know that 'monitor only' using obs as a webcam output to it's monitoring device and 'monitor and output' outputs to both the monitor and the streaming service... I have my obs ALL setup to be used as a webcam and spent hours tinkering to make it work right.... I am legit wanting the output from 'monitor and output' to also go to my speakers.

Is there a way to do that?????


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## koala (Sep 24, 2020)

It goes out to the device you define as monitoring device, and that device only.


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## 226cenk (Sep 24, 2020)

Nevermind. You are not understand what I am asking. I am just going to have to enable 'Listen to this device' in windows 10 audio control panel anytime I want to listen into the specific audio source....

I just want 'monitor and output' to also output to my speakers. I understand that the monitor portion only goes to my monitor device.

I want the output to also output to my speakers aswell as it broadcasting to a streaming service.


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## W William (Dec 23, 2020)

226cenk said:


> Hello. I have been at this for days and hours. I am trying to take OBS's audio output and broadcast it to my speakers. I know that 'monitor and output' lets you broadcast the audio to youtube or some other streaming site, but is there a way to broadcast the audio from OBS to my speakers aswell?
> 
> Currently anytime that I want to listen into the audio source I have to go into window's sound control panel and un(tick) 'Listen to this device' on the virtual cable to toggle the source. My end goal of this whole ordeal is having OBS as my sole control panel and not have an external program like voicemeter to handle it. In place of voicemeter however, I use window's built in sound system to route all of my audio.
> 
> ...











						How to Hear The Audio From a Source on OBS Studio
					

If you're new with OBS Studio, sometimes you might encounter the moment where you can't seem to hear the audio coming out from your audio sources, such as an external microphone or camera. OBS Studio absolutely has a solution for that. It allows you to "monitor" the audio coming from all your source




					livekrowd.com


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## Zapa (Jan 24, 2021)

I think that maybe it would be easier if we could select the output device in OBS the same way we can select the monitor device. That way we could monitor to our speakers and output to other device like virtual cable and select virtual cable in our streaming platform. I think it looks more logical and simple and also issues other problems like echoes and mute microphone from speakers preventing audio loops.


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## Fbosman (Feb 21, 2022)

This is really an issue. 
monitoring in OBS is coming from the source, you get the audio which the sources deliver, before any latency is added.
We also need to monitor the output of OBS. Now we must check on the receiving part (YouTube), but there is to much delay to be effective.


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## BCFischer (Mar 21, 2022)

Fbosman said:


> This is really an issue.
> monitoring in OBS is coming from the source, you get the audio which the sources deliver, before any latency is added.
> We also need to monitor the output of OBS. Now we must check on the receiving part (YouTube), but there is to much delay to be effective.


I am having the same issue, but with less insight. It wasn't until halfway through a recent stream that I realized that my monitored audio was coming in pre-latency adjustment and I was essentially chasing my latency.


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## cyclemat (Mar 21, 2022)

monitoring is only to check not to use live best is use voicemter


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## Fbosman (Mar 22, 2022)

What do you mean?


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