Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

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dazz
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Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by dazz »

I've read that the UCA202 has a poor headphone amp, so I wonder if it's posible to use the one built in in the laptop. Or would that be even worse?
I'm not sure about the details of my setup since I set it quite a while ago with jackc and wineasio to play guitar through a preamp I built, then to the UCA202, then to the laptop. I use an inexpensive but decent Superlux HD-668B headphone set to listen to the crap I play.

Let me know if I need to provide more info cause I don't really know what I'm doing.
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Michael Willis
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Re: Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by Michael Willis »

Hi, how are you?

Using two different audio devices is possible, but it is a notorious pain in the patella. Unless you are experiencing issues with the headphone output of your Behringer interface, you're better off just using it.
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dazz
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Re: Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by dazz »

Hi Michael, and thank you. Truth is the headphone out of the 202 works fine with my Superlux headphones. It doesn't have a tone of output, and the noise floor is not great (although that might be for other reasons, I don't know) but it's perfectly usable. It was more out of curiosity, to compare both and stuff. If you could give me some pointers that would be great. Just a link or a short explanation to give me an idea of where to start looking for info, because I couldn't find anything in my google searches, i f you don't mind. Thanks again.
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Re: Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by Michael Willis »

There are a number of ways to use multiple audio devices, depending on if you are using ALSA or JACK. Please follow the links listed here to get started: viewtopic.php?p=95025#p95025

I don't have any experience with that Behringer interface, maybe somebody else can give you an idea as to whether the not great noise floor is common. I have my suspicions that the noise floor may not be any better with your on-board device, but of course I don't know that for sure.
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dazz
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Re: Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by dazz »

Michael Willis wrote: Sun Jan 31, 2021 3:02 pm There are a number of ways to use multiple audio devices, depending on if you are using ALSA or JACK. Please follow the links listed here to get started: viewtopic.php?p=95025#p95025

I don't have any experience with that Behringer interface, maybe somebody else can give you an idea as to whether the not great noise floor is common. I have my suspicions that the noise floor may not be any better with your on-board device, but of course I don't know that for sure.
Thanks, that looks really helpful. I'll go through those links.
I think I'm using jack, at least I have to start it before I fire up Guitar Rig, but I'm not very knowledgeable about these things. There's a "driver" setting in jackc and that's set to ALSA :?:
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dazz
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Re: Can I use my laptop headphones out with my Behringer UCA202?

Post by dazz »

Turns out all I needed to do is to go to Advanced settings in qjackctl and set the output to whatever the onboard audio card was. Dead simple.
I don't think it made a difference in terms of sound quality, but at least I have that option in case I need it in the future.

Thanks again
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