Headphones are not grounded and shielded. So you will hear "noise" if connected directly to the monitor audio out jack. The audio out will work with any grounded speakers. All the video in ports are digital so the audio must be digital.

I was just going off of the description of the video ports in the User's Guide. Perhaps that confused both of us. The sales site simply states, "1 Audio Line out (connect your speakers)". Notice it does not mention analog or digital.

Thanks for the response Chris.  So therein lies the problem, the digital audio out, which doesn't make sense.  Does this mean that the millions of powered PC speakers most people already have will not work with this monitor since nearly all PC speakers that I am aware of do not feature a digital audio input?  Most use analog input.

Yeah, I looked there first.  Then I also downloaded the PDF manual for the monitor and nothing there either.  Dell rep I spoke with directly on the phone days ago assumed after long discussion that it is a digital out.  And now you kind of think so too, but I'm still not convinced that it is digital out.  It just doesn't make sense that a monitor manufacturer would expect everyone to dump there traditional PC speakers and replace them with expensive digital input speakers.  The audio issue is a killer for me with this monitor.  On the other hand, it is the only monitor I have found so far that has EVERYTHING I want (except for the audio issue).  If I could somehow verify that it is actually analog audio out, then I would buy this monitor tonight.

Thanks again Chris.