BrightBeing

Could you use the mic from phone earbuds as a mic for voice chat?

Yes. But that's kind of off-topic...

Hold on here! I got sonic racing & a headset (my wife can't stand the announcers voice) & when I plug in the headset I don't get the tv audio unless I play exclusively on the gamepad. I want to play on the tv with all the audio coming through my headset that's plugged into the gamepad. Are you saying there's a way to do this? Cuz I couldn't find one.

That's exactly what I want. With Mario, you can do it. Not Sonic, NintendoLand, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu Plus...

I found a somewhat convoluted way to do this. You must have some sort of sound board or some way to combine a mini audio cable and Red and White cables. You plug the white and red into your TV's audio out, and connect it to the board. You also get a mini audio cable (the thing that headphones use) with both sides male and plug it into the sound board. Finally you plug your headphones into the output of the sound board.

Yah... Like anyone wants to do that...

not tried that..if I use the tv then I'll have my sound bar blasting. If the wife has tv then I just play them on gamepad with headphones. The OP was saying the sound wasn't fully supported through the gamepad, which it is....even the home menu sounds..like he said doesn't, it does:) - if u really need headphones for sound but use tv...theres a few options. Like that guy above said, or Bluetooth headphones connected to ya tv out...or there are several special tv headphones..that can do it

That's almost as convoluted as the soundboard option. Why can't a headset plugged into the GamePad work like a headset plugged into the USB of a Playstation 3, or any other console for that matter. When a headset is plugged in, all audio from the system goes to the headset!

I know that ZombiU supports sound streaming to the GamePad. I plug in my headset then go to the sound settings and switch it to the GamePad. Voila. It's streamed through the GamePad!

That's great! Ubisoft knows what they're doing! But that won't work for other games and apps without the option programmed in by the dev. This feature should be system wide, not patched in if you're lucky and your dev isn't lazy...

I'm pretty sure all the audio goes through my gamepad when I use headphones...

Just listen to the Wii U main menu as an example. With the TV, the music is complete. Plug in headphones and you only hear the part of the music that is played on the GamePad, not the TV.

Game depended.
That's all I have to say. Not up to Nintendo on that its u to each game dev.

This is also true. But it shouldn't be. Just like achievements shouldn't be dev dependant. Just like online audio chat shouldn't be dev dependant. With devs doing their thing, you get inconsistant features. GamePad mic works for Wii Chat, but not COD. In the future, maybe it will work for another game, but then not another.