Version: unspecified (using KDE 4.4.95) OS: Linux I have a C-Media USB Headset. If I plugged it in, KDE said “Device xyz is not available and as it’s higher priority, it will be chosen for playback”. In systemsettings I set the headset’s priority higher. When I plugged out the headset, the default speakers were used. In KDE 4.5 the sound system was reworked to now support setting volumes for individual playback streams. Now in systemsettings in Phonon Settings there is just the PulseAudio-Playback Device, no headset, no microphone and such. Thus, the headset is not working, as it is never set to playback. Reproducible: Always
What you are seeing is half support. In order to get full support you need to run the script start-pulseaudio-kde that should be shipped with your KDE Installation. If this script is not shipped, then you need to complain to your distro (I am told that Kubuntu does not ship this file, but I cannot confirm for certain). Here is a detailed breakdown of what to expect: http://pulseaudio.org/wiki/KDE So I think this is a setup/distro problem, but if you find a bug in KDE related to this, please feel free to reopen this ticket.
(downstream is better as it's likely a distro specific issue)