DAC and Soundcard help

[kmufc77]

Hi,

I have a DAC which is obviously using a USB port that gives me sound for everything on Windows 11. I also have a Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus which has speakers plug into it. When i turn on DAC it sends all audio to my headphones. I want to have audio on Desktop separate to when i game and watch youtube etc.

Is it possible to get audio to speakers from games on Windows 11, and then have audio to say Tidal go to my DAC - headphones?

Thank you

 

[dunring]

In the SB command program there's a playback option to select if you want the card to play via headphones or speakers. Just switch that and it'll be the default for the card. Direct mode is even better for audio quality. I had an AE-5 years ago and it's a really good card for its price.

 

[BrokeAudiophileMan]

If you click on the speaker icon in the tray at the bottom right of the desktop you can select any audio source at any time. That's not actually necessary though because the easiest thing to do is to leave the DAC on all the time, set windows default to your soundcard as I just mentioned, then go into the TIDAL app's options and set the output to use "exclusive mode" via your DAC. This way windows audio for youtube/gaming will always use soundblaster and tidal will always use the DAC. Should solve your issue.

 

[Lohil]

Imo the easiest is just to set your DAC as your default sound all windows sounds with go through it ofc. Then in w/e game in it's settings select the alternate sound card you wish for it to use for generating the audio.

 

[sajesak]

Hi,

I have a DAC which is obviously using a USB port that gives me sound for everything on Windows 11. I also have a Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus which has speakers plug into it. When i turn on DAC it sends all audio to my headphones for Rot Doctor. I want to have audio on Desktop separate to when i game and watch youtube etc.

Is it possible to get audio to speakers from games on Windows 11, and then have audio to say Tidal go to my DAC - headphones?

Thank you

Yes, it's possible to have separate audio outputs for different applications in Windows 11. You can configure your system so that audio from games or other desktop apps goes to your Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus (connected to your speakers), while audio from Tidal or other apps is routed to your DAC (for headphones). You can do this by going to the "App volume and device preferences" section in the sound settings, where you can assign different audio devices to specific apps. This allows you to have independent audio outputs for gaming and music listening.