Front jack input on PC gives better sound quality than rear

[amarante]

I bought a new set of headphones and I have always put my headphones in the rear on my PC. The headphones are more expensive than my last ones, which were really cheap. I noticed that the audio is pretty clear but it seemed to be lower quality for some reason.

I have an integrated sound card, Realtek HD Audio. I thought I'd give it a try and put the headphones in the front, and the difference was pretty huge. While listening to a song, it seemed to me that the sound was a bit more muffled but it had more powerful bass. The front jack is listed as Realtek HD Audio 2nd output and the rear is listed as Speakers.

I also checked the default format from playback devices -> properties -> advanced. When the headphones are in the rear, the default format is 24 bit, 48 KHz (Studio quality) but when I put them in the front, all the choices had "2 channels" added to them and the default choice was 2 channels, 16 bit, 48 KHz (DVD quality).

Am I supposed to use the front jack for headphones and why such a difference? I thought the rule of thumb is always to put external devices straight to motherboard if possible.

I also posted this in Windows 7 forum but I deleted it since I thought this would be a better place to ask.

 

[phil22]

On most desktop computers, the front audio-out jack is for headphones, that's why the jack is situated at the front for convenience when connecting/disconnecting headphones. The rear audio-out jack is for an active (ie mains-powered) speaker system.

 

[amarante]

Ok, thanks for the reply, so this is working as intended? I always thought that the rule of thumb is to insert all external devices directly to the motherboard inputs. The reason why I didn't do this with my previous headphones is because they were cheap and I couldn't really tell if anything was wrong with the sound when they were plugged into the rear one.

 

[phil22]

"I always thought that the rule of thumb is to insert all external devices directly to the motherboard inputs"

That's not true for all external devices. It usually applies to the installation & setup of USB printers & scanners to ensure that the system and the driver setup can detect them. It doesn't apply to everything - and it's just as well because I've got four external hard drives for backups and no spare USB ports on my tower, so I have to use a powered hub.