Switching between headphone/speakers

[Fitzy0527]

Ok Im interested in buying some speakers to listen to music freely without the dependency of headphones. However is it possible to switch between Headphones/Speakers without unplugging them? Do I need a program or a switch thing? thanks a lot for any helo [edit] my headphones plug into the green/someother color slot in the back of my sound card and would i have to buy USB speakers cause of this? and do any speakers come with something built in to allow me to switch to headphones easily?

 

[WeHa]

mine, logitech z-560, has a handphone jack in its soundtouch control. so you can switch listen between speakers or headphone.

 

[mrzeeedler]

some speakers have a headphone input on them which work independent of the headphones you plug into them. or you can take a y splitter and plug speakers into one end and headphone into the other. Which is what i do until I find a soundcard with a optical 6.1 surround output.

 

[Suidakra]

mrzeeedler, does a "Y" cable weaken your sound? I've heard this before, but it just may be a myth. Also, where did you get your cable for this?

I use my 5.1 speakers during the day and headphones at night so I don't wake the neighbors with my blaring music or movie watching. It's too much of a hassle to switch the jacks on my soundcard whenever I use the other.

One solution I've come up with requires that you have a two sound devices. Any soundcard (connected to speaker system) and on-board sound (for headphones) on your motherboard. When you want to use headphones, just switch your default sound-device to the other. In windows XP you can even make a shortcut icon for it.

 

[ekÆsine]

it does distribute the signal so there is a bit of loss but not much. you can get it at most electronics stores like radio shack, best buy, circuit city

 

[Suidakra]

Thanks, ekÆsine.

Yeah, I guess it may weaken the sound a bit, but it doesn't really hurt anything, right?

With 6 speakers, there's plenty of means of output. The output on the soundcard that I'd be splitting provides sound to just two of these speakers.

 

[mrzeeedler]

Yeah it doesnt really weaken it that much its not outputing power but rather sound waves so its okay. Only cost a few bucks or so. ALso if you have a 5.1 output which means like 3 cables? just split the headphones onto the front ones or something.