Output to 2 sound cards Simultaneously

Well, I remember some years ago, when windows 7 were at beta version, there was a bug in my installation and all soundcard played the same audio!! (both the internal and usb headset!)

I thought then "WOW!!! Microsoft finaly made this work!!" becouse i thought it was intentional from them..

But then, for my great dissapointment, after windows 7 launched officialy, the bug (or should i say feature?) disappeared..

It can be accomplished. It just requires 3rd party software. Quit telling people things can't be done just because you don't know how. This is all to common on the MS help sites.

EDIT: 2 hours after initial post

I managed to get the 2 sets of speakers working, but now i've just realised the issue of the delay. The audio has a 1second (more or less) delay from the video. I've tried setting the priorities to normal,high and real time but its still the same. So is there any way to fix that?

Also, I have the same problem with the 31 characters of my speaker name in making it run at startup. (NVIDIA High Definition Audio) on its own is 32characters.

Thank you so much !

I used the VAC to solve my problem. I have a desktop (with it's own speakers) and my TV in the living room is hooked up to the desktop (again with it's own speakers) as well. For an entire month I had to "Set default speakers" everytime I wanted to use the TV, vice versa.

Okay, for those who were not able to understand all the technical mumbo jumbo , here's what I did

1.Download VAC http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm (legally or otherwise)

2.Open your sound options (right click on the volume icon->select playback device)

3.Select VAC Line 1 as your default device

4.Open Audio Repeater (which is a part of the VAC software, found in the start->vac folder)

5.Set Wave In to Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)

6.Set Wave Out to the speaker you want to use. Then press start

Now to start your second speaker

7.Open another Audio Repeater

8.Set Wave in to Line 1

9.Set Wave Out to your 2nd speaker. Press start.

For now, you'll have to do this everytime you on/off your computer, but at least its something

There you have it!

I'm now trying to translate the autostart batch file thingy to English, once i'm done I will post it up :) suck it microhard.

Hello All, 

I just wanted to chime in here and hope that I can help.

As others have noted, Virtual Audio Cable ( http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm ) is a neat little app that will allow you two run two instances of it and channel the audio out into two different sound cards.

This is simply what I, personally, need for my media enter computer to do audio output with the HDMI cable to my receiver/speakers as well as to a little wireless audio USB "sound card" that outputs to a speaker than I can carry around and put in different areas of my home when I have folks over listening to music on the patio for example.

For Windows 7, this is what I did.

1. You can install VAC
2. Go into the WINDOWS sound settings and set the newly installed Virtual Audio Cable as the default one for everything by right-clicking on it and setting it.
3. Run the audiorepeater.exe program that comes with it, set it to the 1st sound card that you want audio to go to, click start, and minimize it.
4. Do the same as #3 except point it to your 2nd sound card that you want audio to go out to.

Voila! It works!  But keep reading....

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But... For a purist like me, this is ugly and unacceptable.

The ugliest part about Virtual Audio Cable is you cannot set it up to do this for you automatically each time windows boots. It has no command line driven interface or anything.

What in the **** were the guys at Virtual Audio Cable thinking? Kinda sucks to have to do that by hand every time, right? Well, wrong.

I found yet another little handy app (this one is 100% free) called Do It Again ( http://www.spacetornado.com/DoItAgain/ ). No app ware or any **** on it.. just a good simple light weight app for free. That 's really nice of them considering Virtual Audio Cable wants $20. You have to have it if you want to do this next trick so go download it!

With this app you can record yourself opening the audiorepeater.exe and selecting a few options, clicking start, and then minimizing it (to the system tray, thank god for that at least) and then do it with the 2nd audio device as well. This is a macro record app that will then allow you to repeat this process after a reboot so that you don't have to do it.

STILL pretty ugly, really, but it works pretty well for me. I don't get to hear the Windows 7 boot music/sounds, but whatever. Once it is into windows and my batch file fires off, it waits 10 seconds, then launches the Do It Yourself macro that we just made and it does all key and mouse strokes that we did but much faster and all of this happens in just a few quick seconds.

So if you are like me and boot your media center PC and just do something else before it all gets ready, then you will love this setup.

I created a windows shortcut to the "C:\Program Files\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater.exe" that just sits on the c: called C:\AR.lnk (this will make more sense in a second...)

You then go into the Do It Again program and create a new macro/task. For this case, we simply need to get it to start recording you and do this:

START RECORDING THE MACRO

1. Hit [WINDOWS KEY on KEYBOARD]
2. type C:\ar [ENTER]
3. You then use the mouse to split your audio channel off in to your 1st device and click start and minimize it.
4. Then, you do the same thing again for the 2nd device.

DONE RECORDING THE MACRO

Bam. Your macro is recorded.

The next cool thing about Do It Again is that it can take all the slow downs that you did and fix them so that when you run the macro it goes much faster. Now you see why I had you create that shortcut link earlier on the C: as it creates less typing when launching the app. So go up to Options- Set Pause Time Length. 0.1 seconds worked great for me as a setting in there. Make sure to check the "Normalize All Pauses" check box as well on the options menu. Also, you want to associate the .dia files with Do It Yourself on the options menu. If it doesn't associate them correctly, just associate the files in windows to the .EXE for Do It Yourself.

I then created a .BAT file with two commands in it. If you don't know what a BAT file is in windows, it is very easy. It is just a TXT file that has a BAT file extension on it instead. One command just waits 5 seconds. The other command simply launches the cool macro we made in Do It Yourself. That macro then takes off and sets all this junk up for us each time windows starts and minimizes it to the tray and ends itself. You never know the difference. It is as if you did it by hand,,, but you didn't. Automation is the reason computers are here I guess... Although having to do it like this is pretty lame to be honest.

Here is the contents of the A.BAT file I have on my C:

PING 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 NUL

"C:\Program Files\Do It Again Macro Recorder\VirtualAudioCable.dia"

That PING command is just a trick to get it to wait 5 seconds.

The second line shells the macro you recorded in the Do it Again Macro Recorder and off it goes to make your life easier. The "VirtualAudioCable.dia" part needs to be called Whatever you named for macro in the Do It Yourself program.

I then added that .BAT file into the Startup menu under Programs in windows. If you never knew what that Startup folder in there did all this time, it just allows you to put a link of any kind in there and it will launch it for you when windows starts. So, we put in the .BAT file we just saved with those two command lines up above in it. I now enjoy music all through the house and outside of the house as well when we are sitting around the patio drinking and talking. Can't beat it. Thanks Microsoft. Not EVERYONE is trying to steal audio or whatever your fear is on this.

I have a better method, you dont need Do It Again, and any macro.

1 - Search for notepad in start menu and open it.

2 - Copy and paste this comand for each Audio Repeater window you need:

start /min "audiorepeater_ks" "%programfiles%\Virtual Audio Cable\audiorepeater_ks.exe" /Input: "Realtek HD Audio Stereo input" /Output: "HD Audio HDMI out" /BufferMs:50 /SamplingRate:48000 /BitsPerSample:16 /Priority:Realtime /Autostart

In bold are options that you need to modify according to your preference (I recomend starting the program manually the first time just to know the values)

3 - File > Save as... > Select type as: "All Files (*.*)" and save as "autostart.bat"

4 - Put autostart.bat in C:\Users*USER*\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Everytime your windows start Audtio Repeater will start minimized.

If you dont want the prompt command window flashing everytime your system starts:

1 - Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3 from my last tutorial.

2 - Put autostart.bat in VAC folder.

3 - Open notepad again.

4 - copy and paste this script:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.Run chr(34) & "%programfiles%\Virtual Audio Cable\autostart.bat" & Chr(34), 0

Set WshShell = Nothing

5 - Now save this as a *.vbs file in C:\Users*USER*\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup