Re: [Alsa-user] Play different sounds on speaker and headphones

[Bill U. <un...@ph...>]

On Fri, 9 Nov 2007, Staffan Hämälä wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I wonder if it's possible to somehow play one sound on the speakers and one in
> the headphones? I know that this is possible if you have several devices (e.g.
> an USB headset). Skype can play the ring signal to one device, and use the
> headset for speech - but how is it when you only have on-board sound?

No. One soundcard has one processing path. Ie, one soundcard cannot act
like two soundcards.

>
> I have an Asus P5B motherboard. On the front of the computer, I have one plug
> for headphones and one for the microphone. If I plug in the headset, all sounds
> still goes to both the speakers and the headset.
>
> It is also possible to mute the headphones via alsamixer (or kmix), so it's
> apparently two different channels.
>
> I would like to be able to send one sound only to the headphones, and another
> sound only to the speakers.
>
> How do you configure something like this?
> Do I need a USB headset to make it work?

A usb headset is a separate soundcard. Two soundcards, two sounds is
possible.

>
> I plan to mainly use this for Skype, but it might be useful for other things as
> well.