[savov]

Hello,
I've being lurking this forum for quite some time now, love the community and the awesome reviews you guys post on all kind of audio equipement. With that quick introduction said, I'm in need of a help. With a lot of reading around the forum I got myself a dedicated sound card the Asus Xonar D2, a pair of Edifier T1600 speakers and just recently (yesterday) - the Audio Technica ATH-20X. It's really low budjet and I dont expect nowhere near audiophile quality, but comming from a on-board PC audio with generic PC speakers for $10, well, now with that new setup I'm having a total blast!
But also I have some kind of a problem. Because the Xonar D2 does not have a pinout for Front Audio jacks, at the moment I'm constantly pluging in and out the speakers and headphones cables from the audio card. With some digging around the Xonar driver settings, I came around the idea of plugging the headphones in to the Side Surround jack of the audio card and configure the Audio Out option in the driver from 2 Speakers to 4 Speakers, while leaving the Channels to 2. Well, it sure does work. I can't hear any downgrade to the sound quality, only that the volume is like 5% down, but I'm listening to ~50% Volume from the driver, so I just compensate by bringing it to ~55-60%. Question is, is it OK for the card and the headphones to work in such (unintended) way? Or is it a bad idea and it could cause problems in the long run?
 
Thanks a lot in advice!

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I've being lurking this forum for quite some time now, love the community and the awesome reviews you guys post on all kind of audio equipement. With that quick introduction said, I'm in need of a help. With a lot of reading around the forum I got myself a dedicated sound card the Asus Xonar D2, a pair of Edifier T1600 speakers and just recently (yesterday) - the Audio Technica ATH-20X. It's really low budjet and I dont expect nowhere near audiophile quality, but comming from a on-board PC audio with generic PC speakers for $10, well, now with that new setup I'm having a total blast!
But also I have some kind of a problem. Because the Xonar D2 does not have a pinout for Front Audio jacks, at the moment I'm constantly pluging in and out the speakers and headphones cables from the audio card. With some digging around the Xonar driver settings, I came around the idea of plugging the headphones in to the Side Surround jack of the audio card and configure the Audio Out option in the driver from 2 Speakers to 4 Speakers, while leaving the Channels to 2. Well, it sure does work. I can't hear any downgrade to the sound quality, only that the volume is like 5% down, but I'm listening to ~50% Volume from the driver, so I just compensate by bringing it to ~55-60%. Question is, is it OK for the card and the headphones to work in such (unintended) way? Or is it a bad idea and it could cause problems in the long run?

 
I do not think you will have problems with the setup you have, but it is the first time of heard of it.
But I would say to sell off the Xonar D2 and get the Asus Xonar Essence STX (used off eBay).

 

[savov]

Thank you for the reply!
I haven't seen this workaround anywhere, and that's why I'm asking if there will be any problems using the headphones in such setup. The other solution I can think of, is a stereo jack splitter, but that means it will lower the volume even more. (Ohm's law for parallel resistance)
The Xonar Essence STX is pretty expensive around here, even used, so I'll have to stick to the D2 for now.