How do I use "Headphones" with SB Audigy and Creative 5.1 Speakers??

[Se7en01]

I know this sounds stupid but I can't figure out how to use my headphones. I use to have Monsoon speakers and an older SB Live card and the monsoon speakers had a headphones connector on the "volume" control. When I plugged the headphones in they overrode the speakers and sound ONLY came out of the headphones.

NOW.... I have a SB Audigy and Creative 5.1 speakers. The speakers have NO headphone plug on the volume control so I have to plug them into the sound card. However, I must UNPLUG the speakers from the input in order to plug in the headphones. When I do this, the volume coming out of the headphones is a constant barely audible level with no control.

My question is two fold....

1. Is there anyway to plug in my headphones without unplugging the 5.1 speakers???

2. How do I get the sound in the headphones to have control??

This is the craziest thing Ive ever seen. I pay $99 for the card and $99 for the speakers, and I can't even use headphones without digging around to the back of my computer and unplugging the speakers???

This is suppose to be the age of convenience and advanced technology...however, this is the most inconvenient thing i've seen as far as computing goes.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[sohcrates]

well, you can build your own headphone on/ off switch. i did that when i used to have your same problem (then i bought a live drive, and that had a headphone adapter on it).

you basically need a radio shack project box, some wire, 3 female 1/8 plugs, one DPDT switch, and some soldering skills. don't know if you're up for that, but it's a pretty simple little project. let's you switch between headphones and speakers.

if you decide to continue unplugging your speakers, your option for volume control would be to either use the windows volume control (little speaker icon on your taskbar) OR, you can buy an in-line volume control (from radio shack i believe) that you put in-line with your headphones and it gives you a little volume control thingy that you can physically grasp. with that, you would basically turn the windows volume control all the way up and then turn the volume know all the way down until you reach a comfortable level.

 

[ojai00]

You can get a stereo splitter from Radio Shack for about $3. I was using that for a while before I figured out how to get the headphones working on a single jack on my Santa Cruz with Z-540s. I'm not sure if there is any quality deterioration, but I didn't notice anything. Hope this helps.