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Changing the audio balance on windows 11.

Anonymous
2025-02-17T06:55:50+00:00

I have earbuds that have a difference in the audio volume between the left and right, I want to change the audio balance to reflect the need for more volume in one ear, but the audio balance setting only lets me make them even. My earbuds play Left 65% and Right 50% on my phone due to the discrepancy of audio on one side but I am not able to do this on my laptop. The difference in audio between my earbuds means that I can only use one at a time since normal volume in the left one (85% vol) is painful in the right, and normal volume in the right (50% vol) one is non-existent in the left.

When I try to adjust the audio for one side (left) it changes the other (right) one too. I need the left one to play more audio and the right one to play less to even it out, I thought that I could change the volume played by one earbud with the Left and Right options, but it doesn't do anything.

I don't want them to produce sound evenly on the computer, I want them to produce sound evenly to me. I have tried going into the sound settings and accessibility settings, but I end up in the same place with the same result. I don't have any other earbuds at the moment, and I honestly don't want new ones when the sound quality is intact - both of the earbuds still function and both have the same level of audio quality, they just don't have even volume output.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-02-18T05:14:14+00:00

    Hi b3ej.

    Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

    You want to adjust the left and right audio of the headset to different gains so that they sound the same. You can change the audio balance in the following ways:

    1. Press "win + i" to open "Settings". Go to "System"-"Sound" in sequence
    2. Move down to "More sound settings" and click it.
    3. Right-click the headset currently in use and select "Properties"
    4. Go to the "Levels" tab and select "Balance". Here you can change the different left and right channels.

    If you adjust the sound on one side here, the sound on the other side will follow the movement. Then you need to adjust the following registry:

    (Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or work group is intended for advanced users, administrators, and IT Professionals. It can help fix some problems, however, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For further protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - Microsoft Support to view the article.)

    1. Press "Win+R", type "regedit", and click "enter" to enter the registry editor.
    2. Enter: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Bluetooth\Audio\AVRCP\CT
    3. Find "DisableAbsoluteVolume" and change the value to 1.

    After saving, restart the computer to adjust the volume balance above.

    Best Regards

    Raylan-MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-29T19:19:32+00:00

    i cant because it adjusts both instead of only right or left

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2025-06-20T23:53:06+00:00

    Why is there a button to adjust the balance that doesn't let you adjust the balance without manually editing a registry entry? How come this worked fine with my SoundBlaster on Windows 3.11 with a simple horizontal trackbar but now it's all "Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or work group is intended for advanced users, admin...."

    This isn't just me ranting, I'd genuinely like an answer to why such a basic feature doesn't work. If this is simply a bug will it be fixed before the solution is to ask some OS integrated AI to adjust it for me?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-20T16:02:10+00:00

    I followed the steps to change the value to 1 in the registry editor, but I no longer have the option to balance the volume anymore.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
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  5. Anonymous
    2025-06-18T12:06:32+00:00

    The really sad thing is that even though we are in 2025, Microsoft STILL hasn't added a feature where you can totally balance

    EACH WEBSITE SEPARATELY!

    As an example, I have many security cameras running, each with audio, each in their own browser tab.

    What I'd like to do, but can't, is to be able to adjust balance on a per-tab basis.

    So for example, the 2 cameras in front of the house, on a North corner and South corner, I'd like to have the one camera's audio come through the right speaker (or right on the headset) and the other camera's audio coming through the left.

    I have a 7.1 surround headset that works very well.

    The dream would be, to be able to ajust each camera's "position" separately, again, on a per-tab basis.

    But there's no option for that.

    And since each camera's audio is part of its stream, there's no way to separate the audio from the video, on the fly, to put the audio through a mixer or something like that.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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