Repurpose rear audio ports to play sound from different sound devices

Question

I have a Motherboard with 6 rear audio ports and Realtek ALC892 Audio Codec. Right now, my stereo speakers are plugged into one of the rear ports (the green one), and one pair of headphones is plugged into the front panel green port.

With this configuration, Realtek allows me to map these two ports to two different output devices by checking the option "Make front and rear output devices playback two different audio streams simultaneously" (as seen in this screenshot, which is not by me btw, I chose this one because my layout isn't english).

Now if I plug in another pair of headphones into another rear port (let's take the blue one for instance), Realtek will ask me what I plugged in - options vary depending on the port, the blue one gives the most options (Line in, Headphones, Speaker out, Center/Subwoofer etc).

However, no matter which ones I choose, I do not get another output device (neither in the windows sound control panel, nor in the Realtek one). Instead, Sound will either play through my Speakers and my Headphones simultaneously (notably if I choose to map the blue rear port to "Headphones" and leave the speaker configuration at "Stereo"), or it plays different sound channels through my Speakers than my Headphones (e.g. if I select "Side Pair" for the blue port and change the speaker config to something like 7.1, then test the side pair by clicking them in the preview on the right. Same works for other Speaker configurations if I choose the right kind of device for the blue port.).

Now, it's obvious that Realtek is able to play seperate sound channels through different rear ports.

My goal is to be able to play sound from different sources through this (e.g. mute the speakers while listening through the headphones and vice versa, or playing sound from different applications through each of them).

However, I don't know how Windows/Realtek "create" a sound device, and how i could map one to a certain channel that outputs into my blue rear port.

Suggestions are welcome, I won't hesitate to try out rather technical stuff to achieve this.

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

This post solves a different problem but you can repurpose it to suit you. After completing all of the steps, just rout you different virtual speakers (Speakers 1, etc.) to different channels in your real speakers which you set up as 7.1 or similar.

I hope it is helpful!

Answer 2

Here are some updates and insights:

I found this article describing how to set the rear and front audio ports to different playback/recording devices (speakers, line in, mic, headphones etc) via the registry editor. After checking it out, i found that doing this manually is the same as selecting those settings in the Realtek Audio Manager. It especially means the solution provided in the article does not work for me (I can set green to be speakers and blue to be Headphones, but they still run through the same Audio device and will output the same sound stream).

However, it provided a way for a v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶u̶g̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶d̶i̶r̶t̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶c̶k workaround that at least allows me to switch between speakers and headphones quickly:
I can write a batch script that changes the values in the registry, switching the green port to line in (which will disable it from outputting sound) and the blue one to speakers/headphones, and vice versa if I want them to switch back.

This is neither elegant, nor does it allow simultaneous output of different Audio streams on both devices (e.g. a game on one and a music player on the other). However, it works for my purposes for now (I'm still interested in other ways, though ;) )

Here are some other approaches:
If a Monitor with Line out is available, it will usually implement its own sound device in the windows sound panel. This can be used to output different audio streams to different devices. Note that most monitors will also apply their own Equalizing settings etc, meaning the sound might not be what you want it to sound like.

The same should work with USB Headphones and DACs as well, though I can test neither.