• Registered: 2015-11-07
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Headphones and breakout cable

I decided to put my quill and parchment down to move my composing to all this electricity stuff - kidding but not by much.  I am researching for an audio interface that that would suit Cakewalk Sonar Platinum, Sibelius 7, and Kontakt 5 on a Windows 7 64 bit system and I saw the RME HDSPe AIO as being a good fit since the optional analogue input board with its RCA sockets would suit my old Yamaha keyboard as well.  However, while reading through the manual on this card I noticed it had drivers for Windows 2000 (disconcerting, how old is this card?) and that headphones can be plugged into a "breakout cable".

I tried to visualize this and couldn't.  I have a nice set of exterior sound suppressing headphones that has a pink and a greenish grey plug for the microphone and headset stereo sound respectively.  You know the ones, standard PC headsets.  So, what's the story here?  How does this card output sound and to what?  What does this breakout cable look like?  What kind of headphones are required?  Does this card allow connection to speakers or surround sound?

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
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  • Registered: 2007-05-21
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Re: Headphones and breakout cable

The card is much newer than the OS it supports, this is usual for RME. You can buy the latest technology and still get serious backwards compatibility.

That headset is made for consumer soundcards and not really compatible with pro audio interfaces.

The AIO has Phones and L/R stereo output by default. The main outs would connect to your power amp or powered monitors.

Again, not really compatible to consumer surround sound systems, aside from using the optical out to send Dolby Digital from your DVD player application to a receiver.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website

  • Registered: 2015-11-07
  • Posts: 2

Re: Headphones and breakout cable

I'm still confused.  Will this card handle all the sound on my computer in addition to the professional software that requires ASIO drivers?  Can I watch and hear the You tube tutorials I'm going to need?  Because if the only barrier to me using this card is that I need to connect phones through an amp... so be it.  But if your advice suggests that this card will not run the MME, DS, WASAPI and other non-professional Windows sound functions then it is better that I continue my search for a better suited sound interface.