The line output on sound cards is not meant to drive headphones. You should try hooking it up to powered speakers or an AVR

Also in your first pic the RCA plugs are not plugged in all the way

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-07-09, 14:27:

Also in your first pic the RCA plugs are not plugged in all the way

I think that's the whole point x3

pretty sure that adapter is wired incorrectly, as with no ground connected there should be no audio at all?

the channels probably get shorted together somehow hence why it gets louder when you disable one side, and if you disconnect one side there is no "ground" path.

though I can't really explain all the effects that are happening there either, you should check the connections on the adapter with a multimeter, measuring inside the 3.5mm socket might be hard, so it'd be handy if you have a loose 3.5mm plug/cable to plug in and test on that.

https://pinoutguide.com/Audio-Video-Hardware/ … 5s_pinout.shtml
I'd guess that at least one of the channels connects to ground instead of L or R

that would explain why you get no audio if one side is unplugged, cause there is no path for the other signal to go to, and why it's silent when both are on cause they probably cancel each other out or something like that.

I would refrain from plugging them in again anywhere.

imi wrote on 2020-07-09, 14:31:

I think that's the whole point x3 […]
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maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-07-09, 14:27:

Also in your first pic the RCA plugs are not plugged in all the way

I think that's the whole point x3

pretty sure that adapter is wired incorrectly, as with no ground connected there should be no audio at all?

the channels probably get shorted together somehow hence why it gets louder when you disable one side, and if you disconnect one side there is no "ground" path.

though I can't really explain all the effects that are happening there either, you should check the connections on the adapter with a multimeter.

I would refrain from plugging them in again anywhere.

Oh right I missed where he said that was intentional

Easy enough to buzz out the dongle and see what's going on with it

Thanks for your replies 😀

The problem was me, I’m embarrassed to admit.
I have this computer at work, and just grabbed the first headset I could find. I didn’t even notice that it had one extra connector for volume control. When they did’t work I tried a an old iPhone headset, of course they have that extra connector too.
So when I finally tried a proper headset that I had at home with just the 3 connectors on it, it work just fine.

Still not a good idea to drive headphones directly from that line out, but you do you

I won’t be using headphones. The computer is at a temporary location right now, and I just wanted to make sure my new card works while I build on the machine.

TRRS headphones should still work just fine on a TRS jack though, I don't quite get how that combination would cause these issues?

Yea I have no idea. Maybe the adapter is poorly designed, having the contact surfaces placed slightly wrong inside, creating a short circuit?

crazyzed wrote on 2020-07-11, 04:56:

Yea I have no idea. Maybe the adapter is poorly designed, having the contact surfaces placed slightly wrong inside, creating a short circuit?

The symptoms you describe sound like a bad / not working ground connection. The can very well be due to the TRRS headset (with the extra contact) and the (possibly cheap) chinch/TRS adapter. On classic TRS plugs, the sleeve contact (the long contact in the back) is ground. On TRRS plug, just the second ring is ground, whereas the sleeve (at the very end of the plug) is the microphone/volume control. If the jack in your adapter connects RCA ground to the microphone area instead of the proper ground ring, you will experience exactly what you described.

So it is extremely likely that the RCA/TRS adapter is just incompatible with TRRS headsets because of an unfortunate position of the ground connection. If you don't insert the RCA plugs into the AWE completely, you will loose the outer connection, which is ground. You still hear sound if both RCA plugs are inserted, because the electric circuit is completed from the left "hot" wire, through the left earpiece to the internal headset ground (which is not connected to AWE64 ground), then through the right earpiece into the right "hot" wire.