hello all -
still learning that's for sure!  please excuse the length :)
 
i'm about to get some monitors (krk r5) which is great except now i have lost the headphone jack that was on my old pair of garbage pc speakers and i use the headphones a lot at night.  my sound card is m-audio delta 1010lt so it has 4 RCA outs (1/2,3/4,5/6,7/8).
 
being the noob i am my first tune has 30 something soft synth instrument tracks as well as a few audio tracks all outputting to 7/8.  I'm not using a single bus at the moment so i've no experience using them yet.
 
the goal now is that i need a way to switch between headphones and speakers. as easy as possible and i would like to have both connected so that i'm never fumbling with cables.
does it make sense that i would route all of my tracks to a bus and then i could just flip the output of that bus between say 7/8 and 5/6?
 
 
any other ideas? 
i was thinking an old school AV switch but fear that would degrade the sound quality.
i'll likely end up using more buses etc as i get to the mixing phase of this tune but for the time being....
 
 
 
thanks all :)
 
 

Usually, the easiest way to switch between headphones and speakers is via the interface rather than separate bus assignments in the DAW. On mine, I have the headphones always on and simply switch the main speakers on or off as needed. This is made more convenient by a separate power switch on a rack-mounted power strip/conditioner.
 
It's a good idea, though, to create at least one bus and route all your tracks there. This gives you more routing possibilities, a volume control within the DAW, a handy way to check mono-compatibility, and most important, the ability to apply effects to the full mix such as a bus compressor, master EQ, limiter and metering plugins for gauging the song's overall loudness.

It was always a huge issue with those delta cards, It's odd they never had a Headphone jack. 
The solution was to use a little mixer like those tiny mixers with 4 channels for like $40-$80. But that's $40-$80 that could be put towards a better more up to date interface... 
Even if you send to a separate buss, headphones need a totally different connector and a little stronger signal than a line out. 

hi guys -
 
well the headphones work fine when plugged right into the card.  i use an RCA split to headphone jack size and then plug that into the back of my wireless transmitter (i got these wireless sennheisers i bought long before playing with a daw)
 
idk
i have 4 sets of RCA outs so i could have both the headphones and monitors plugged in at all times
just need a way to switch between the two on my PC
i think bitflipper you are suggesting i can do this on my soundcard interface?
but doesn't sonar only output to one of these outs?
that's why i thought i could create at least a single bus and then switch the output of that whenever going between phones/monitors
 
SSIA - confusion!
hope you guys are well i've been quite busy lately workin and trying to make music :)

I've owned a few different interfaces and all of them had both 1/2 - 3/4 and SPDIF outputs. 
Sonar always shows those 3 output channel strips to the right of the Master buss on the console view.  I would think you just need to mute the one you don't want. 
 
If your interface doesn't seem to allow both 1/2 and 3/4 at the same time then a solution I used once with my M audio was to insert a send in the master buss that was assigned to 3/4. At least I think that was what I did. 
My Tascam and Scarlett seemed to not have that problem and output to both from the Master. 

Under Options>Audio>Drivers , you can select all/any output drivers making them available to choose as a track/bus
output.

Sorry, seed, I didn't know that your interface doesn't have a dedicated headphone output. If you must use the two outputs for speakers and phones, then switching within the DAW may be your best option.
 
Run all your instruments to a master bus. But instead of routing the master to the hardware outs directly, create two more busses and route the master to both of them. This will require adding an aux send to the master bus. Then route the first of those busses to the speaker channels and the second one to the headphones. You can then use the Mute buttons on those two busses to choose which you want to hear, speakers, headphones, or both.

ok some terminology here i'm not terribly familiar with but i have enough to google and do some experimenting
thx much!
 

Yes, reading Bit's reply jogged my memory. I did use a AUX send from the Master but as he said first you have to create 2 new stereo Buses first. 
 
If you not sure how:
 
Right click on the lower track pane where your all your Buses go. You should have a Master Buss and some effects buses already.
If you don't, then find the blank pain at the bottom and Create them. I'll explain. 
Some people never create there own buses because they started with the Normal template which did this for them. It took me over a year to discover this myself. 
 
The lower pane is separated from the main track pane. You might have to pull it up. 
You can insert a Stereo Bus by right clicking the lower track pane. 
These buses can be used for anything, Master, Effects, Sub groups and output choice. 
It's a simple matter of naming the bus and assigning the output to where you want it to go. 
All output options are available to all buses. Including sending it to another bus. 
As example, your effects and sub mix buses are always output to your Master, Then the Master is output to your main interface channels ( 1/2) 
 
They will always show as output options when you right click the proper spot on either a buss or a track. 
Then you can also insert a SEND. And sends can also be output to any bus. 
 
So there are all sorts of options for you flip between output 1/2 and output 3/4. 
 
You could just change the output of your master buss.
 
But creating the 2 stereo buses. 
Then inserting an Aux send for each bus would allow just hitting the Mute button on either bus. 
 
But as I said my Tascam ( and before a M-Audio)  interface already has the 2 output buses which seemed to be automatically put there by Sonar or the drivers. 
I can insert sends on my Master and those are the only 2 choices so I don't need to create the 2 new buses. 
It's to bad that any bus can only be sent to one output at a time. Multi outs would be handy.  
My Scarlett handles it totally different with the Mix Control software and allows for multi outs. But it also has a big knob on the front to control monitor levels. 
 
 

thanks again guys
i'm printing this thread out today and hopefully diving into it before the weekend
 
that's the wife's decision tho  =()