sound card question. fortissimo

[bockchow]

ok i switch between headphones and my creative inspire 4.1's constantly. i have to keep the noise down. i currently have a creative pci128 sound card and i want to upgrade to something that suports 4.1. i was looking at the muse and the fortissimo. i read that with the fortissimo you can switch between headphones and speakers from the system tray and i was wondering how this is done. i know very little about sound cards so forgive my ignorace i'm trying to learn. right now i have to switch plugs in the back of the case and it's kinda a pain. does the fortissimo have a dedicated head phone jack? is this a standerd thing with newer cards? if so does the muse have this capability?

the breif reveiw seemed to say that you couldn't do this on a live card so i was wondering which cards did have this and how it works.

 

[GoSharks]

on the FII, there is a dedicated headphone jack so you dont have to do anything other than adjusting volume and chaning the output in the software.

 

[bockchow]

what other cards would you recomend short of a platinum or a gtxp that also have a dedicated headphone jack. the fortissimo looks nice but it's kinda pricey and i have no need of the digital jacks. would a muse or a santa cruse have a dedicated headphone and still suport 4.1?

i think i'll head over to toms and sharky's a see if i can find a sound card for dummie article or something.

 

[Idoxash]

i got my fortissimo for around 80 bucks now its less then 50 bucks i don't see where that's a lot of cash at all

 

[Lalakai]

can't offer much input relating to sound cards, but I use headphones extensively and just ran a high quality extension cable from the back of my unit, and use that to alternate between speakers and phones. Much easier with the connection right above the keyboard.

 

[bockchow]

ok i found the fortissimo at newegg for 32+9s/h for an oem, not bad. but does the oem come with all that packed software like power dvd or is that retail only? i'm useing ravisent right now and that works fine so i don't realy need the packaged software but it would be nice. any idea what it comes with?

 

[stuck4life]

the OEM version doesn't have:

Game Commander 2 SE
Storm Hercules SE
PowerDVD 3.0

I bought the retail version and got a OEM CD
and then the guy at the shop tried to give me a burnt copy of PowerDVD 2.55 :|