Switching between headphones and speakers

[RisseN]

Hi All,

I use Roccat Kave 5.1 headphones which uses a usb cable as well as 4 regular audio jacks. In addition to this I have a regular set of speakers. I generally only use the headphones when im gaming. So when im just listening to music or general messing around I want to use the speakers. Is there a way to easily swap between the two?

I have Realtek audio installed and I have 5 audio jacks at the back of my pc which I currently use (4 for the Kave and one for the speakers). But I also have an audio jack at the front which I dont use.

The problem is that I cant seem to swap between the two. So if I dont have my headphones on, I cant hear anything because my speakers aren't being used. My Pc just seems to ignore them, even though it is picked up by realtek when I plug the jack in.

Surely there is a quick and easy way to switch between either using the headphones or the speakers?
Or if that's not possible, can both be used at the same time (as long as my headphones still keep their 5.1 surround sound)

Im running Windows 7 btw.

thanks.

[Pada]

Right-click the Volume icon in the system tray (bottom right of task bar) and go to Playback devices.
Next, select your Realtek audio device and set it as the default.

By changing the default audio output device, you should be able to switch between your headphones & speakers.

With my Xonar Essense STX, I can simply use their Control Center to easily switch between Headphones & Speakers.

[RisseN]

Thanks for the reply, but I have tried that. The problem seems to be that when I plug in the speakers, realtek picks it up as being one device along with the headphones instead of two separate devices. But I will play around with that a bit more tonight and see if im doing something wrong.

[Zarathustra]

I have a similar situation & bought a small,cheap adapter which has one input, & two outputs.

Plug both the headphone & speaker inputs in & when I need to listen to audio from the speaker, I just switch the speakers on, otherwise they are turned off.

Have a look here:

http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en...LceJhQeK24GAAw

[Pada]

Could you perhaps tell us how you connected your speakers & headphones to the onboard sound card?

Did you connect your headphones to like Front (L/R), Back(L/R), Center/Sub and your speakers to the last ones?
If you did something like that, then of course you can't just switch between them. I thought you had (audio over) USB headphones and speakers plugged into Front (Left/Right), which would've resulted in 2 separate audio output devices being enabled.

[RisseN]

Could you perhaps tell us how you connected your speakers & headphones to the onboard sound card?

Did you connect your headphones to like Front (L/R), Back(L/R), Center/Sub and your speakers to the last ones?
If you did something like that, then of course you can't just switch between them. I thought you had (audio over) USB headphones and speakers plugged into Front (Left/Right), which would've resulted in 2 separate audio output devices being enabled.

Hi,

I have 5 audio jacks at the back of my pc, and at the front there is 1 audio and 1 mic jack. The Kave headphones require 4 audio jacks plus a usb slot. The speakers require 1 audio jack.

My problem is that I cant seem to figure out how to plug all that into the pc in such a way that it is picked up as two separate devices.

I have tried plugging the Kave into the back ports, then plugging the speakers into the single front port with no luck.

thanks for the help.

[Pada]

With my Realtek onboard sound card, the front audio port always gets preference over the back ones.

So if your front audio is working (when everything is plugged out at the rear), then I'd suggest that you simply plug in the front one when you want to use your speakers in that way.

[NomNom]

The simplest way is to get a cheap sound card and have your speakers or ROCCAT Kave's connected to it so that when you want to use them you just make the sound card the default device and if you want to use your onboard you switch to that.

This is how I have mine setup and easy as pie. Also you can set for example your Teamspeak to use your sound card and your game to use your speakers so you can talk on Teamspeak and have your game play out of the speakers.

[czc]

The simplest way is to get a cheap sound card and have your speakers or ROCCAT Kave's connected to it so that when you want to use them you just make the sound card the default device and if you want to use your onboard you switch to that.

This is how I have mine setup and easy as pie. Also you can set for example your Teamspeak to use your sound card and your game to use your speakers so you can talk on Teamspeak and have your game play out of the speakers.

So with a sound card you can have 5.1 speakers and 5.1 headphones connected at the same time without having to go and unplug the speakers everytime you want to use your headphones?

[Pada]

So with a sound card you can have 5.1 speakers and 5.1 headphones connected at the same time without having to go and unplug the speakers everytime you want to use your headphones?

Yes. Having a second 5.1/7.1 sound card should allow you to switch between headphones & speakers without having to unplug anything. Just take note that it is still a few clicks away to switch between the two and switching between the two while the application is busy outputting audio could cause it to crash - or at least this is what I found when I unplugged my Xonar U3 while Media Player was running.

[NomNom]

I do it constantly everyday. I have a Creative sound card that I got years ago. I use my onboard sound for speakers and my sound card for my ROCCAT Kave.

I listen to Teamspeak on my ROCCAT Kave. And my Battlefield 3 game via my speakers. I can do this because Teamspeak allows you to select the output device.

You should be able to do it with any sound card and program. I have not encountered a program that has crashed from switching the default playback device, however some programs will not switch while they are running. You will need to close and open the program again.

A cheap sound card you can get to achieve switching between headphones and speakers easily would be the following one: http://www.ngrcomputers.co.za/creati...d-p-59743.html

You can of course use any 5.1 sound card that you can get your hands on.