How to have two headphones attached to a pc?

[ThePCPicker24]

I already have one headphone and I use that to listen to music. Im getting gaming headphones but I dont know if it is possible to have two headphones.
Example: They are both on the headphone stand, I want to listen to music, so I take the music one. Then I want to game, so I just put on the other headphones. Is there a way to do this? Am I making any sense?
I heard that theres a thing called a splitter I need, is this true?
Kind regards, Lucas

 

[FD2Raptor]

I am having a different setup to yours, but I have a dedicated sound card with a headset connected to it, and the speakers connected to the integrated one.

Games will playback on to the Windows default playback device (which is simple as right-clicking on the speaker icon in the system tray, then select "Playback device" and then pick one as the default), with some having options to select which device to send the audio to. Any half-decent music players will have that option to select which device to play audio to.

i.e. you can set your audio/music player to play back through one of the two sound cards connected to the music headphone while leaving the default playback to one connected to the gaming headset so that you don't have to configure the audio for every game.

This is with Creative SB Live! 24-bit + ALC 882 on W8.1.

Others may have the cheaper, simpler or different solution for your need though.

 

[Isokolon]

No need for 2 sound cards if your current sound quality is sufficient usually.
If your computer has a front audio out - and ever, case I know does - you can just plug in your music head set there and your gaming headset at the back
All audio will play on both devices.

This works on most boards (except for my old one, with a cheap VIA HD Audio when the rear jacks disabled when plugging in front audio, but that's rare)

 

[ThePCPicker24]

No need for 2 sound cards if your current sound quality is sufficient usually.
If your computer has a front audio out - and ever, case I know does - you can just plug in your music head set there and your gaming headset at the back
All audio will play on both devices.

This works on most boards (except for my old one, with a cheap VIA HD Audio when the rear jacks disabled when plugging in front audio, but that's rare)

So, would I just mute the headphone I am not using?

 

[Isokolon]

You don't even need to (except for when your music headphones have a mic)
Audio is just coming out of both headsets.

 

[The Paladin]

you can set up in most cases the front and back output for headphone to be independent signals so you can tell games to use game headphone and music to use the other.

 

[ThePCPicker24]

You don't even need to (except for when your music headphones have a mic)
Audio is just coming out of both headsets.

I heard that letting headphones go without your head on it is bad for them. Am I just an idiot and those are rumors?