two sound cards on one XP machine????

[lancsDavid]

ok, here's the problem....

i've got an audiophile 2496 inside a machine running windows XP. i want to connect a little pair of PC headphones to my computer just like i do with onboard sound

(i don't have room to stick a great big amplifier under my desk)

so, can i either enable onboard sound AND use the audiophile 2496 at the same time?

or, can i buy something like a Soundblaster Live & have this AND the audiophile running at the same time, in different (PCI) slots?

(presumably, the soundBlaster for the headphones & the audiophile for recording, or something like that)

or, (last resort option), if either of the above 2 are too much of a pain in the ass, what's the cheapest kind of headphones amplifier i can get?

( there's an m-audio one but at £60 it's way too expensive. i was thinking more of £10 or £20... )


any help much appreciated

(even if it's only links i can follow to do the research)

[GZsound]

I think you can use seperate sound cards for seperate I/O. One for input and one for output..

[TimOBrien]

ASIO only allows you to access ONE driver at a time.

You can run multiple cards from the same manufacturer that use the same driver
(for example, I can gang 3 Motu devices together and it'll see 'em like one big device.)

AND you have to have some way of connecting them together or the clock chips will drift over time, leading to un-sync'ed recordings.

Trying to do it with cheap cards will just have you running in circles...

[robertruetz]

Are you trying to do this for a recording reason, or just so you can use the computer for games/music/general entertainment purposes? In one of my setups, I run a MOTU Ultralite (Firewire) for my Recording I/O and then run all of my computer sounds (games, iTunes, bleeps, blips, etc.) off of the onboard soundcard. So far, my PC has handled it just fine. If anything, it works better.

The general rule is to disable the onboard or cheapo (Soundblaster) sound for a recording rig, but for my application, it's worked just fine. So, in my experience, in certain setups you can use both the Onboard sound and another interface... Now, whether or not this holds true for a PCI card like the 2496, I'm not certain.

In response to your headphone amp question. There is some cheap stuff available that might help. Perhaps a personal monitor/headphone amp setup. I think Behringer has a $20 US (http://www.behringer.com/MA400/?lang=ENG) version that might work. In one of our studios we run a pretty cheap little Rolls Headphone amp (http://www.rolls.com/products/ha43.php). It does the job, and was under $50 US, if I remember correctly. I don't think Sweetwater sells it, or I would give you the link.

Le_Singe
:cool:

[Bops2000]

You can do, should not be a problem at all.

[lancsDavid]

Bops2000...

so using normal PC headphones (played back using onboard sound) & audiophile 2496 for recording is fine?

(i just thought onboard sound had to be disabled to get the audiophile to work)

[robertruetz]

I'm not sure you can use both at the same time for recording and playback in a DAW. It'll depend on what drivers you're using. You'll probably need to look into an external way to monitor via headphones. I'd use either one of the headphone amps mentioned above, or an external mixer.

Le_Singe
:cool:

[lancsDavid]

ok. well, does anyone know of some piece of hardware that would...

1. amplify the output from my audiophile 2496 (headphones-wise)
2. ALSO work as a pre-amp for an attached microphone input

something as cheap as possible. could be old or new. cos this way, i wouldn't need 2 soundcards would i?

[robertruetz]

Look for a used mixer on eBay. Surely you can track down an old Behringer unit. I have the MX602A, which is now I think part of the UB series. It has pre-amps and phantom power, and I think it cost me $60 new several years ago.

A mixer will allow you to monitor the output from your 2496 via headphones or monitors, and it has mic pre-amps and other inputs to get sound into the 2496.

Le_Singe
:cool: