Thread: Dumb question...headphones/speakers

How do you go between headphones and speakers on your rig?

I have a 2.1 speaker set with a nice subwoofer but I play all my games thru a headset. I don't know diddly about the various jacks in the back of my sound card, but I have had one of these since they came out -



it did a whole lot more back in the day, but I still use the hockey puck looking thing as a switcher between headset and speakers...

Is there a better way?

Not that I personally know of. What I am working on is getting the front audio header on my case to work properly with my SB Xtremegamer card.

In theory, when you plug your headset in, it is suppose to mute your speakers and send everything through the headset. Unfortunately from what I've read, no one wires the connectors to complete standards and you have to rewire them. Makes you wonder why they call them standards.

There are 2 types of connectors, IntelHD and AC'97. If your card uses Intel but your case is AC, you'll just need to move some wires around and vice versa. Although in my case, my TT Shark case is suppose to be IntelHD and so is the Xtremegamer but I still have to rewire it. When I plug in my headset I get sound in speakers and headset, when I unplug my headset I have no audio at all (Mutes everything).

If your looking to do this, make sure the soundcard you buy or have has front header connections. You'd be amazed at how many DON'T have it.

I unplug and re-plug through the front... Altec Lansing headphones. Love 'em.

Will

There's a simple way to do this in XP, but if you want to do it in-game, you should probably stick to the hockey puck.

Go to the sound symbol in the system tray, right click on it, and go to "Adjust Audio Properties".
Assuming you have the headphones and speakers both plugged in at once, all you have to do is go to "audio" and change the "Playback Device" to your speakers, or your X-Fi sound card (assuming you have your headphones plugged into the audio jack on the card itself).

The same thing works in vista. Right click on the task tray volume control and choose playback devices. Right click on the one you want to use and choose "set as default" and that's the one that works.

I have usb headphones/mic that I use. It was worth it so I didn't have to build my own "hockey puck" for switching.

Yeah, all this sounds pretty ridiculous - did they not imagine that somebody would want to EASILY swap between headphones and speakers without going into properties and playback devices, etc etc...

stupid.

I'll stick with the hockey puck.

I have a puck myself. Its nice and simple, flip a switch and i have 5.1, flip it back and I dont get yelled at