PC tower headphone jack vs Speaker control box's headphone jack

[ksred]

Hey everyone, apologies in advance if this is the wrong section for this question.

I'm not as knowledgeable on my audio as I'd like to be, so this may sound dumb I have an ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard which, unless I'm mistaken, has 5.1 sound built in. My speaker system is the Logitech X-540 5.1 system, which I love. I'm looking at getting a gaming headset but for the time being I'm using Dre Beats Studio HD (come at me haters )

Anyway, my speaker system comes with a box like this:

Is it best to put my Beats headphone cable in the jack on this box where I can use a volume control dial, or is it best to stick it into the headphone jack on the front of my PC? Unless I'm just stupid, it think there may be a slight bass boost and clearer sound when plugged straight into the front on my tower. And of course, the PC actually detects my headphones as a separate device if they are plugged straight into the front, whereas they aren't when they're plugged into the control box, so maybe this contributes?

THANK!

P.S. Any suggestions for 5.1 gaming headsets welcome, £120 max.

 

[thdarkshadow]

I would guess that it would be the same but if one was better it would be straight through the pc. the less places it has to travel the better. and since you think it sounds better thats probably the thing to do idk much about gaming headsets as i just use my music listening ones to game with. A friend of mine has some turtle beach that he swears by but i have not used them so idk

 

[ksred]

I would guess that it would be the same but if one was better it would be straight through the pc. the less places it has to travel the better. and since you think it sounds better thats probably the thing to do idk much about gaming headsets as i just use my music listening ones to game with. A friend of mine has some turtle beach that he swears by but i have not used them so idk

I've just played some Bioshock Infinite on the PC and through the speakers everything sounds great. Through the speaker's control box port, sounds fine with my headphones. Through the front of the PC where iTunes music etc sounds slightly better, Bioshock sounded really weak, almost no bass and everything just sounded generally poor.

Edit: Upon further comparison, the sound is COMPLETELY wrong in Bioshock using the PC's front port, yet the same or slightly better in iTunes. About to try restarting with headphones already in PC port. I'll also try other games.

This is very strange.

 

[ksred]

Ok, I think the problem is with Bioshock itself. The game audio is fine if I start it up with my headphones plugged in the front of the PC. If I then remove them and plug them into the speaker's control box port, the sound fucks up again but corrects itself when I plug them back into the PC's front. It clearly just doesn't like switching audio devices mid-game, understandably

I guess the only workaround to this is to use the speaker's control box for my headphones, considering it technically isn't changing playback device when I plug my headphones into that.

P.S. If anyone is seeing this, to get a good 5.1 headset, will I need a dedicated sound card or will my motherboards built-in 5.1 suffice? Also is there a difference between USB and 3.5mm quality? I hear many people saying you can just use programs such as Razer Surround to 'turn it into' 5.1... It's confusing me as to what is the best option in terms of quality Thanks!