Maxxaudio pro, easy way to switch between headphone and speakers

Video helped a little, but being Windows 7, it made it more confusing.   I did learn some things that I'm sure will help in the future.  It showed how to show the Stereo mix device, and I plugged in my data for the headphone which allowed a headphone to show up in the Record tab.  I was able to find the Stereo mix device by clicking a "show hidden devices" option.   Buuuuuuut....once I did that the stereo mix seemed to go away forever. I had no option to show "hidden" devices, but only disabled or disconnected. Anyway I ended up with the headphone being the only device producing sounds.  Probably if I disconnect the headphone from the front jack, I well hear the speakers, but that's what I'm trying to avoid (plugging and unplugging). The video said something about hearing speaker and headphones at the same (which is probably good for gamers), but I only want to switch easily between headphones and speakers. I still have no idea what I need to do in sound manager to accomplish this, and wish I knew what happened to my stereo-mix device.

In fact, I'm finding this whole discussion rather ludicrous.  We used to have stereos with a volume button and gear drive changer for changing the rpms. Now we get a computer with an i7 chip capable of a huge amount of processing, but it doesn't come with a switch to manage the audio that makes any sense.Why doesn't Dell have a set-up wizard that will ask all the right questions and put the audio into the setting that you want? Sorry, that would  be too doable and easy. Let's make them hunt around in device settings in some kind of complicated way that seems to vary with the computer set-up. I've seen a lot of questions being asked online and I don't see any solutions. If Dell makes computers that plain don't work, they need to acknowledge it and fix it. I've found nothing in this forum. Nothing in a google search. Nothing in a Windows 8 forum. Wave Maxxaudio doesn't seem to have a support operation.

I can't even get the enhancement features to turn on, although the Maxxaudio Pro  is advertised as being a great addition to integrated sound processing. Even though the machine is brand new, Dell want to charge for support.  Just to get the thing to play out of the speakers?  Whew, nervy!

No, you're absolutely right. All the gains in computing and they still make something simple like this complicated. I'm going to edit your subject to try to get more attention.

I'd sure like ANY help. I've been over the sound manager and the properties of all the devices.There's no way to troubleshoot.  The integrated audio card just doesn't seem to work, at least in the sense that it can be set up correctly.  Time to ship this brick back, and set-up my XP Dell.

Another thought-I see in some web responses the claim that MaxxAudio Pro is a stereo only chip-set. I wonder why the set up for the speakers includes set-up for 5.1 or 7.1? Maybe the answer is to unplug the rear speakers jack and place the headphones in that jack? I suppose I could upgrade to a real add-on sound card, but it seems from the advertising and the reviews that this Maxxaudio set is well-regarded and there was no option on the Dell site for this computer that mentioned a sound card upgrade.

MaxxAudio Pro is just the software. Your audio adapter is an Intel chip. And pretty much all of them support surround.

IN DELL AUDIO MAXX AUDIO PRO