Sound in Headphones but Not Speakers

[ArsPolitica]

Well sort of.

I have a WinTV tuner card and a soundblaster live x-gamer (not 5.1) I also have a 2.1 Soundworks speaker system. To listen to TV, I ran the audio out from the TV Tuner into one of the audio inputs on the subs. I've decided I'd rather run the audio through the soundcard, so I opened up my PC and ran a 4 pin sound cable from the TV Tuner to the AUX Input on the SoundBlaster.

My problem is that I can't hear the TV over the speakers. I can however hear them on my headphones. I utilize the digital output on the soundcard to connect to the input on the back of the subs, and my headphones go into the speaker jack on the soundcard.

The audio from the TV is being passed to soundcard, because I can hear the TV on my speakers. I can also mp3's or CD's on both the speakers and the headphones.

Any idea why I can't listen to the TV over my speakers, only through the headphones?

TIA
-Cameron

 

[corkyg]

You confuse me here: I can't hear the TV over the speakers.
Then you say: because I can hear the TV on my speakers.

As I mentally tried to trace your audio, if you can hear on the headphones, then connect that LINE OUT port to your external speaker system.

I think you are mixing analog and digital. The audio you have going from your WinTV to the Soundcard via the 4 wire cable internally is probably analog. Instead of going from the digital output to your sub, use the LINE OUT analog port.

 

[ArsPolitica]

Oops, I did misstype there. What I meant to say was because I can hear the TV on my HEADPHONES.

You did however diagnose the problem I think. What you're saying is that the signal from the TV card is analog, therefore the onlyway to hear it coming out of the soundcard is to use the analog output. That makes sense, and sure enough it worked.

Two followup questions:
1) I left the digital out plugged into the speakers. When playing things like mp3's or DivX, will the signal still get sent digitally (not that I could tell a difference, I'm just curious)

2) It would still be nice to have my headphones plugged in without having to reach under the desk all the time. Would a little y splitter allow me to plug in both the headphones and speakers into the single analog jack?

Thanks so much,
Cameron