Newbie needs help -- sound control panel confusion on surface 3.

Hi. I'm setting up my pc for recording and I'm not clear on setting devices for playback. It seems like it should be obvious but I'm not getting playback out of the tascam uh-7000's headphone jack. I simply plan to record spoken voice. I feel like this windows mixer control panel has never made much sense to me. Also, audacity has recording and playback devices at the top too. Do these override the choices I make in the mixer panel? Do they return to normal when I exit audacity? I'm tempted to pull out my MacBook Air which I had planned to sell. I know it's more cut and dry than the windows control panel. I would rather understand what is happening though . This isn't the first time this has driven me crazy. Thank you for your great resource.

Jarrett

Newbie needs help -- sound control panel confusion on surface 3.