Sound/Mic ports on front of case....

[KH85]

where do you plug in the sound ports on the front of your case? do they go to sound card? i have a Audigy..does that have the ports? btw me Mainboard has onboard sound but i have it disabled atm.

Thanks in advance

KHGamez

 

[KH85]

BUMP

 

[KH85]

*BUMP*

Does anyone know?

 

[KH85]

C'mon people someone should know what it is 🙂

 

[KH85]

someone MUST know 🙁

 

[whovous]

The full blown Audigy has a separate box/panel that occupies a 5.25" slot on the front of the case. The cheaper Audigies, like my Audigy Gamer, have audio outputs only in the back. The cards have a bunch of bare copper pins that look like they should attach in some way to the front panel sound jacks on my Antec Sonata. However, I downloaded the Audigy owners manual from the Soundblaster web site and it says that the Audigy Gamer does not support front panel audio jacks.

It is really a bummer to have the outputs on the MoBo, but to be unable to use them after disabling them to put the Audigy. And to think that front panel audio jacks were one of the reasons I chose the Sonata... Then again, I haven't used the front panel USB or firewire jacks, either...

 

[deerslayer]

It depends on the case.

I built a system for my friend with a chieftec case with front audio and usb, and it used regular speaker plug ins that went into the external sound inputs.

 

[whovous]

It cannot depend on the case if there is nothing to connect to the other end of the wires coming out of the front panel jacks. Lower end Audigy cards have no connection, regardless of the case.

 

[gramboh]

I thought some systems work by plugging a wire (inside the case, connected to the front port) into the back of the soundcard, then plugging your headphones/mic into the front of the case. Crappy system but probably works.

 

[deerslayer]

Originally posted by: whovous
It cannot depend on the case if there is nothing to connect to the other end of the wires coming out of the front panel jacks. Lower end Audigy cards have no connection, regardless of the case.

The front audio ports on the case I got for my friend had regular speaker plugs on them. The cable was routed out the back through a PCI cover with a slot in it and then the cable plugged directly into the sound card where you would normally plug in your speakers. This cable would plug into any sound card 😉

 

[whovous]

Ok, I stand corrected, but yuck, what a kludgy fix! Basically, you run an extension cord from the rear outlets to the front, and make the rear into the front, right? For me, the point of wanting front outlets was to have two different places to do things, i.e., not to have to unplug my speakers every time I wanted to use my headphones, or to input an unusual line device for a short period of time. The rest of the stuff I'd rather keep in back out of the way.

 

[KH85]

Thanks Guys,

Ill look more into it, i might have to get an audigy platinum then 🙁

 

[deerslayer]

Originally posted by: whovous
Ok, I stand corrected, but yuck, what a kludgy fix! Basically, you run an extension cord from the rear outlets to the front, and make the rear into the front, right? For me, the point of wanting front outlets was to have two different places to do things, i.e., not to have to unplug my speakers every time I wanted to use my headphones, or to input an unusual line device for a short period of time. The rest of the stuff I'd rather keep in back out of the way.

Ive never had front audio on any of my cases. If you had a non-integrated sound card, many of them offer several outputs for sound. I have 3 sets of speakers hooked up to this computer through my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. For that type of sound card it would work fine.

What do the other audio cables plug in to? My TBSC has TAD, CD, AUX, MIC/HEADPHONE, SPDIF IN, and SPDIF/12s connectors on the card. I'm assuming the mic/headphone is the one for front audio?

 

[whovous]

Well, without getting into the digital connections, you can use an "extension cord" from any analog audio out on the back of your computer to an audio out jack on the front of your computer, and you can jumper from a front input to a rear input in the same fashion.

But the real idea of front jacks, I think is to have more jacks available, not simply to make the ones on the back more accessible. I have a Monsoon 5.1 audio system (Model 505, or something like that) occupying all of my rear outputs already. I have to unplug something to put headphones back there, and that is just a pain to get to. (Note to others: Yes, there are several other alternatives to this - it is just one example).

The line-in jack seems even more important to me. Every once in a while I may want to record an analog source to my HD. I've been planning for a long time to burn a lot of my vinyl to CD via the HD, and having a front input would just be a whole lot more convenient, given the amount of time this project will take (assuming I ever get started😉). My cheaper Audigy card just does not have the extra set of jacks to do this, however. And that is the same problem the original note writer faced.

 

I'm assuming the mic/headphone is the one for front audio?

Has anybody found any documentation on the Santa Cruz Mic/headphone connector on the side of the card ?. This is one of the few times Google did not find anything.

 

[Ness]

Why don't you guys who the need the extra ports just get a splitter and turn the one jack into two. Send one to the front and keep the other in the back. I mean, seriously, why would you ever need to be listening to your headphones and have all your speakers going at once? Most speakers nowadays have a volume knob, so you can just turn that all the way down and you won't have to worry about the speakers, while the splitter is still sending the signal to the front.

 

[whovous]

There are lots of kludgy solutions to the headphone problem, including a splitter which lets me have even more wires hanging around. It is the line-in solution that is harder if you care about the mess and/or convenience factors.