BEST AUDIO ROUTING APPS FOR WINDOWS (2026)

THERE ISN'T ONE "BEST" ONE

We make one of these tools, so we'll say this up front: there's no single winner here, because "route my audio somewhere else" actually covers a few genuinely different problems. Quickly nudging Spotify's volume down is a different job from piping game audio into a stream as a virtual mic, which is a different job again from making sure Discord always comes out of your headset no matter which monitor you're looking at. Four tools below, four different jobs. Pick based on which problem you actually have, not which one has the flashiest name.

WINDOWS' OWN APP VOLUME SETTINGS

Windows has had a built-in way to send a specific app's audio to a specific output since 2018 — on Windows 11 it lives under Settings > System > Sound > Volume mixer, where each app that's making sound gets its own output dropdown. It's free, it's already on your PC, and Windows remembers the choice per app, so for a simple "Spotify always goes to the speakers" setup, it's genuinely fine.

What it doesn't do is react to anything. It's a setting you go find and change by hand, not a rule that watches which monitor your window is on and switches for you, and it only ever sends an app to one device at a time. If a fixed per-app assignment is all you need, you don't need to install anything — this section is really just here so you know the free option exists before you go looking for software to do it.

EARTRUMPET — THE BEST FREE MIXER

EarTrumpet replaces Windows' clunky volume mixer with a proper one: a taskbar flyout showing every app making noise, a slider for each, and drag-and-drop to move an app to a different output on the spot. It's free, open source, and it's the tool we'd point most people to if all they want is faster day-to-day volume control.

It's still a mixer, though, not a rules engine — it'll remember where you moved an app (it uses the same per-app setting Windows does), but it has no concept of "this monitor means this speaker," and it never switches anything on its own. We wrote a full head-to-head comparison if that distinction is the thing you're actually trying to decide on.

VOICEMEETER / VB-AUDIO CABLE — THE MIXING CONSOLE

Voicemeeter and VB-Audio Cable are a different category entirely: virtual audio devices plus a full mixing console, built for routing audio between applications — piping game audio into OBS, building a virtual microphone that blends your voice with a soundboard, that kind of thing. Free or donationware, extremely capable, and genuinely the right tool if virtual routing and mixing is what you need.

The tradeoff is real setup complexity — virtual cables, input/output matrices, and a learning curve that's steep if all you actually wanted was "send this app to that physical speaker." We go deeper on exactly that distinction in a separate piece on virtual audio cable alternatives, since it's a common enough mismatch to be worth its own explanation.

AUDIOBIND — THE AUTOMATIC OPTION

AudioBind ($4.99, Microsoft Store) is what we built because none of the above quite covered "make this permanent and hands-off." It watches which monitor your active window is on and switches audio automatically, and separately supports persistent per-app rules — lock Discord to your headset forever, regardless of what monitor it's on. It can also mirror one app's audio to more than one device simultaneously, which none of the free options above do.

It's not a mixer and it's not a virtual routing tool — it doesn't do volume control, and it doesn't create virtual devices other apps can capture from. It does one job: get the right app's audio to the right real device, automatically, and keep it there.

ACTUAL MULTIPLE MONITORS — THE COMPLETE DESKTOP SUITE

Actual Multiple Monitors by Actual Tools is a well-known commercial utility ($29.95) that overhauls multi-monitor desktop management on Windows with multi-display taskbars, window title buttons, and desktop dividers. Among its extensive toolset, it includes an audio-switching feature that detects when you drag a window to a different display and reassigns its soundcard accordingly.

If you already need full multi-monitor desktop restructuring, it's a capable suite. However, it's significantly heavier on system resources than a dedicated audio tool, and it doesn't offer multi-device synchronized mirroring or persistent app rules. We wrote an in-depth head-to-head comparison with Actual Multiple Monitors exploring the differences.

SOUNDSWITCH — THE GLOBAL HOTKEY SWITCHER

If your workflow doesn't need window tracking at all, but you simply want to switch your entire system between headphones and speakers at the press of a keyboard shortcut, SoundSwitch is an outstanding free, open-source tool. It sits quietly in your system tray and lets you configure hotkeys to cycle through selected playback and recording devices instantly.

It doesn't route individual apps or watch which monitor a window is sitting on, but for quickly toggling your default audio device between gaming sessions and Zoom calls, it does one thing and does it well.

SCREENSOUND — THE OPEN-SOURCE DISPLAY SWITCHER

ScreenSound is a lightweight, open-source project on GitHub designed to address a single specific irritation: changing your default Windows audio output whenever an active window is moved across screens. It runs in the background and switches the system default output based on the active monitor.

Because it operates at the global default device level rather than managing per-app audio sessions, moving one window will switch all system sound along with it. It lacks per-application rule isolation, spatial routing matrices, or multi-device mirroring, but it offers a minimalist open-source script approach for basic screen switching.

SO WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU ACTUALLY INSTALL?

If you're just adjusting volume per app once in a while, EarTrumpet, free, no contest. If you just want a quick keyboard shortcut to toggle between your headset and desk speakers globally, grab SoundSwitch. If you need to pipe audio into a stream, a recording, or a virtual mic, that's Voicemeeter or VB-Cable's actual job. And if you want audio to automatically follow your windows across monitors without touching a button, mirror apps across multiple devices in sync, and stay locked permanently, that's what we built AudioBind for.

QUICK QUESTIONS