Any way to connect two audio devices to one PC and keep them separate?

[Stg-Flame]

I have a 7.1 Surround Sound headset for when I play by myself and my ancient 2.1 stereo system for when I play local co-op with my girlfriend. Both the headset and stereo use the green 3.5 mm jack in the motherboard, so I'm wondering if there's an easier way than unplugging all the connections every time we play co-op. Space is rather limited so I think a splitter would take up too much room and prevent all the connectors for my headset. If I just unplug the green from my headset, the sound is off on the stereo and it makes certain games pretty difficult.

Any recommendations or am I stuck with constantly swapping cables?

 

[fralexandr]

You don't have front panel connectors on your case?
If your front panel only has the 2.1 connector you could still plug in your 2.1 stereo system to the front.
Otherwise, you could just buy a sound card or usb dac to connect the other system to, and toggle the output device in windows?

 

[Stg-Flame]

I have a mic and a headphone jack on my front case, but when I used the headphone jack, the sound was off as it still played some of the sounds through my headset and the rest through my speakers. The only other option I could come up with was to completely disable my headset via the control panel with my speakers connected to the headphone jack, but it took twice as long to disable then reenable the headset than it took to just unplug the cables.

I guess it's just a small annoyance I'll have to live with.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Tried to use the headphone jack on the front of my case, but it won't detect the speakers.

 

[corkyg]

Normally, the headphone front jack deliberately shunts speakers off when used. Try looking at headset control boxes that connect to the rear audio output. That should give you a switch control that does the same as switching cables.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Could you elaborate on the control boxes? Not entirely sure what you're referring to.

 

[corkyg]

Without spamming, I would look at a switchbox that controls audio inputs and outputs . With one input, the user can select different outputs These have been around a long time in the audio world. Here is an example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5mm-2-5mm...one-Switching-Hub-172851-SB-A51-/290963946815

 

[Stg-Flame]

That looks like what I need.

Thanks a lot. Time to start searching for one with the connectors I'm looking for.

 

[Mike64]

I have a mic and a headphone jack on my front case, but when I used the headphone jack, the sound was off as it still played some of the sounds through my headset and the rest through my speakers. The only other option I could come up with was to completely disable my headset via the control panel with my speakers connected to the headphone jack,

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but did you look in your audio manager controls, possibly under some sort of "advanced settings" tab? Below is a capture of the relevant window in my (Realtek) manager, is the second option (not selected in that pic) what you're looking for? (And then you can go into the audio mixer

 

[MongGrel]

A switch box would probably be simpler and easier.

Trying to use something like onboard sound and an add on card and changing it in the software all the time might be a bit of a PITA, I would think.

 

[Stg-Flame]

The thing about my front 3.5mm jacks is that my PC doesn't detect anything that I plug into them unless it's an actual pair of headphones.

As for buying and installing a sound card just to alleviate a few seconds of unplugging wires, that's a bit too much.

 

[Mike64]

The thing about my front 3.5mm jacks is that my PC doesn't detect anything that I plug into them unless it's an actual pair of headphones.

Unless something's wrong with the other thing(s) you've plugged into that jack, that's actually kind of spooky. It shouldn't matter at all what's plugged in, as long as the plug is compatible with the jack's pin configuration. Even if (hypothetically) the output device connected to the jack weren't sensitive enough to produce audible output from the headphones-level signal, the computer should detect that "something" has closed that circuit... I know this is kind of obvious, but are you sure whatever else you're plugging into the jack works properly in the first place?

 

[Stg-Flame]

Yes. When my girlfriend bought me some new headphones for work, I didn't have anything to try them out on, so I just plugged them into my computer.

 

[corkyg]

Most headphone ports have a shunt that shuts off speakers when a jack is plugged in.

 

[Mike64]

Yes. When my girlfriend bought me some new headphones for work, I didn't have anything to try them out on, so I just plugged them into my computer.

No, I wasn't asking if the front audio jack works, I meant the plug that's connected to your 2.1 system. That works properly when you plug it into the output on the back of the computer and nothing is plugged into the front audio jack? Or when you plug it into a totally different audio source? If so, I really can't begin to imagine what could be going on... And in that case, exactly what PC do you have, or if you put it together yourself, what motherboard did you use? If it's a pre-built, you might as well try to call the manufacturer, though I'm not sure how much help that'd be...

 

[Stg-Flame]

Motherboard is an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 and I built it myself. The 2.1 system works perfectly fine when they are plugged into the back, regardless of what's plugged into the front.

 

[Mike64]

Motherboard is an ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 and I built it myself. The 2.1 system works perfectly fine when they are plugged into the back, regardless of what's plugged into the front.

I'm all out of ideas, then. That really sounds pretty spooky to me, unless there's some setting, or combination of settings, between your audio manager and the system's audio mixer that's causing the trouble. Barring that sort of issue, like I said before, I just can't imagine why the system is failing to even detect the plug in the jack - it just "shouldn't be doing that".

 

[freeskier93]

I'm guessing the headphones have a mic? Are you using a splitter?

 

[Stg-Flame]

Yes the headphones have a mic, but I'm not using any splitters.