Suggestions for avoiding cluttered Front Panel audio?

[MonsieuRoberts]

Hey guys! Question for you:

I'm using an Asus Xonar DGX sound card. I use a headset with dedicated 3.5mm headphone & mic jacks, and some 2.1 speakers witha single 3.5mm jack.

I'd like to have all my cables and whatnot taken care of out of sight, ideally behind the PC, but as it stands I need my speakers plugged into the sound card and my headset plugged into the front panel audio of my case, and I use the soundcard to switch between "2 speakers" and "FP Audio".

What I hate about this is that I have the front panel audio cables sticking out the top of my case!



I watch plenty of setup videos and check setups here often, and there's lots of setups that have speakers AND headsets and they don't have wires protruding from their front panels. How do they do it? Do I need to get a DAC or an amp or something? What would you guys suggest?

I don't have my sennheisers anymore, so I don't really need the soundcard anymore, although I do like that it makes it easy for me to swap between headset & speakers when I want to.

Any suggestions are welcome!

[Lathais]

cant you plug the headset into the back of the motherboard instead of the front jacks? If I understand correctly, your speakers are plugged into a dedicated soundcard, so the ports on the motherboard should be free.

[Denpepe]

Unless you have a wireless headset, you still have the same wires around, just originating from a slightly different spot?

My old 5.1 speaker system did have a headphone jack on the (wired) remote control on my desk, but I don't realy see the big deal here.

[MonsieuRoberts]

If I plug my headset directly into the back of my MoBo, not only do I get a buzzing sound in the background of my headset, I can't swap between headset & speakers via the soundcard. In-fact, with headphones in MoBo and speakers in sound card, the speakers don't work at all. I can only get audio on my headset.

Am I missing something simple here?

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, if I go into my sound devices and DISABLE my headset, then it goes to my speakers. But...then my soundcard doesn't do anything at all. No 7.1, no EQ or Hi-Fi...

It's like I can't have both soundcard features AND not use my front panel.

- - - Updated - - -

Instead of headset into MoBo, I popped my speakers in there instead, and moved my headset to my sound card. Still have to go into sound devices to switch between them, but this way I can use the soundcard where I want it; My headset.

I'll keep looking for an easy way to swap between which device is being used for sound, but this essentially solves my issue.

[Deleted]

Used to have very similar issue - ie. wanted to be able to switch audio output between headphones and speakers. In the eventually I ended up connecting everything into single sound card (ports are reconfigurable) and just switch off speakers when I don't use them

[Shakadam]

You can only ever have 1 default audio output in Windows. The sound chip in your mobo and the sound chip in your asus card are 2 entirely different things. You generally can't have sound coming from both at the same time (some programs will let you choose which audio device to use, but most will simply use whichever you have selected as your default device in windows playback settings).

The reason you get a buzzing sound when plugging your headphones into your mobo is because the audio chip in your mobo is very likely inferior to your asus card, and it's picking up interference from the other components in your mobo. It's the same thing if you have your speakers connected to the mobo, but you may not notice it as clearly as with your headphones, if your speakers are of lower quality.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Used to have very similar issue - ie. wanted to be able to switch audio output between headphones and speakers. In the eventually I ended up connecting everything into single sound card (ports are reconfigurable) and just switch off speakers when I don't use them

Are you saying I can turn that "center channel in" into a "headphone/audio in"?

[Deleted]

Are you saying I can turn that "center channel in" into a "headphone/audio in"?

idk if YOU can do it. I know I can do it with my sound card

[Kagthul]

My suggestion would be to upgrade your speakers to something that has pass-through jack(s). My simple, cheap Logitech 2.1 system that i use on my daily driver has them on the little remote thing. They were like 30$. Then you just plug your speakers into the audio out, your mic from the headset into the audio in, and when you want to swap to your headset, just olug it into the remote.

[Captain Fizz]

Use on-board sound for speakers. leave 'em plugged in.

Disconnect front panel plug from sound card (should resolve buzzing sound) and plug headphones into Asus.

Set Asus as default comms device, on-board as default sound device.
Can set individual programs to the headphones if you need.


Job done.
Swap on-board with Asus depending on what you want to be the best quality, headphones or speakers.

[Deleted]

on my old mobo (msi) i could easily remap the back audio ports in the realtek software to w/e output i wanted.
on my new mobo (asus) i'm having a lot of trouble remapping them, so i to have to have my headset in front jacks.

even tried https://www.reaper-x.com/2012/02/13/...d-jacks-ports/ but i guess i did it wrong or asus just doesn't like remapping.
maybe i should try installling the realtek drivers not the asus drivers sometime.

[opeth150]

Quick an easy.

Plug speakers into computer-set them as default device

Plug headphones into
https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Exter...ABVCD25NVPKNA0


Now for vent/skype/mumble/discord you can set the "in and output devices". So go into settings and set them to headphones.

Now all sound is piped through speakers and voice is piped through headset.....if you want to play stuff on headset go back into your sound settings and set the "usb sound card" as "default" device. The only problem with doing it this way is whatever you want sound coming from has to be closed prior to switching the sound card. So say you are playing BF1 and your like "man this would be better through the headset" you would have to close BF, switch default sound card to the USB one, then re-open BF1.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Use on-board sound for speakers. leave 'em plugged in.

Disconnect front panel plug from sound card (should resolve buzzing sound) and plug headphones into Asus.

Set Asus as default comms device, on-board as default sound device.
Can set individual programs to the headphones if you need.


Job done.
Swap on-board with Asus depending on what you want to be the best quality, headphones or speakers.

This is what I've ended up doing, and the buzzing did indeed go away when I unplugged my HD audio.

Thanks for the replies!