I am trying to listen to headphones through my soundcard (Creative Audigy 2 ZS). Because of the way my computer is positioned, I cannot pull it out far enough to see all the labels on the soundcard, so I plugged in my headphones to every slot, with music playing on PC, but in every slot I could hear nothing. My speakers do not have headphone input either. Is it possible to use headphones on a PC?

Usually you have to plug your headphones into the same jack as your speakers, which is a combined line-out/headphone jack. Probably you could configure your soundcard to send the signal to another jack, too. If your speaker system is only stereo and not surround-sound, theres a good chance you can reconfigure the "rear"-output on your soundcard to deliver front stereo. But anyways: RTFM first.

My speaker inputs have one jack for left, and one jack for right, where the headphones are one jack for both, so that wouldn't work.

I was talking about the jack on your soundcard. Unless there is another solution for your soundcard (which i don't know) or you have another soundcard in your system (maybe integrated on your mainboard), you'd have to unplug your speakers on your soundcard and plug in the headphones instead.

I have an audigy 2 ZS and I think it has a headphone jack, but I got an external box with various ports like headphones, firewire, optical etc.
Why don't you just look at the manual?

I can't solve the "I don't hear anything from any of the sockets" problem, but I can solve the speakers vs. headphones problem:

http://www.audio-discounters.com/audio-pcswitch.html
http://www.cybergiftcenter.com/application...=AUDIO-PCSWITCH

It's very convenient.

-brendan

i have my headphones connected to the headphone jack now
for it to work, i'm supposed to select "headphones" instead of "speakers" in the speaker settings on my PC. but when i click the drop-down menu, NOTHING comes up at all. hmm :/

Do your speakers work when plugged into the output? The output is headphone/line-out/front left/right. If the speakers work fine then I'd say your headphones are broken.

Every soundcard I've ever had works when you plug headphones into the line-out...no need to do any special settings on the PC at all. There's always an option to tell Windows what's plugged in.

Try getting a soundcard with a proper headphone output. M-Audio makes some for instance.

What is 'proper'?

I personally have no clue what the Audigy 2 ZS uses for a headphone amplifier circuit. I did have an Audigy 2(non ZS), and I now have a Soundlaster 24 bit Live!. Neither card produced noticeable distortion or frequency response errors. I don't know what the Audigy 2 used, but when I glanced at the 24 bit Live's headphone output, it uses a high current operational amplifier that is specifically intended for such loads. In fact, it uses the same IC used by the *over-priced Grado headphone amplifiers. The amplifier may not be sufficient for some high impedance amplifiers due to voltage limitations on the sound card, but it seems to work fine on average sensitivity headphones.

-Chris

*[Overpriced considering that the part is about $0.25[probably about $0.10 in high quantity] and that the Grado amp design is essentially the same as a CMOY, based on reports by people who have opened the amplilfers].

I checked and Creative doesn't list a headphone output. If it had a CMOY inside that should be fine for the OP as he just wants headphones to work.