Sound output

mgfxmgfx Gothenburg, Sweden
edited July 2004 in Science & Tech
Hi all

I bought a Headset today, an USB Logitech one with a microphone. works great, but I need help figuring one thing out now. My old headset was connected to the sound card, and so was my stereo, i.e. they shared the sound output port on the soundcard.. so I could choose whether to use the stereo or the headset when I wanted to listen to music etc.

Now as I connected this new headset to the USB port, the sound card port doesn't seem to output sound at all, and the stereo aint getting anything. Is there a way to solve this easily? Maybe an option somewhere in the sound options of windows to choose either one or the other. I haven't found one yet, so I thought I'd ask here :)

help appreciated!

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited June 2004
    This looks like a USB Hotplug issue, and drivers that "swap" and reroute audio to the USB device. In your case, might be as simple as unplugging the USB from a USB extension cable run to front of computer to use stereo. Might also be broken driver<->hotplug interactions if that does not restore stereo sound. There are type A USB cables that are female on one end, male on other, and gender menders that are female both ends to convert a straigth makle to male USB to male-to-female. thne you can plug the USB device in and out without gettign around to back of computer, see if stereo cut in when you unplug the USb device and how long that takes-- coudl take 5-10 seconds, but if drivers are real good, it should happen. In this case, might be possible also to daisy chain things through a media\audio hub or with boht channels fed, to use a mute in an audio software control to control output bny device right from desktop, though I have not run into this exact thing and built adapters for this. Might also be possible to run BOTH a digital sound cable and an anlog one from a DVD to the motherboard or sound card, let the stereo have non-digital audio and the USB device have digital.

    I can only suggest some things to explore without a LOT more info.

    Sound\Audio is a strange thing, lots of operating systems handle digital sound as a real time thing. AND handle USB as a hot-swappable device thing. The bus strategies conflict in several ways.

    Getting a media hub that can handle USB and analog or digital wired output is best long term fix, I would think. Or try using both digital and analog sound to handle this. Some of the newest EXTIGY devices can do both kinds of thing that you are trying to do now, with ports for both. Fix might not be at all cheap in $$$ unless you can externally power your USB transmitter for wireless headphones (I am guessing these are wireless or radio headphones you have, that is most likely reason for USB sound) and build an adapter cable to feed sound through USB data lines from a normal sound jack plugged into sound card.

    ADDED: One other thing, I was thinking after posting this above part first. with most USB, power is avalable to all plugged in USb devices. The power line is not used for hotswap. So, should be possible to power your transmitter with a USB power line only run, while running a hard extension cable to audio from stereo and hook it to the data lines for USB only. This would take some design research, could be done by you unless you can find a device that allows for this. Then you might be able to use a sophisticated stereo to switch between speakers or stereo's aux out for headset.

    I know no EASY way to do this, sorry.
  • mgfxmgfx Gothenburg, Sweden
    edited July 2004
    thanks for the reply! I'll try to do some research in the areas you mentioned and we'll see what I can come up with :)
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