AE5Switcher

The Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 sound card allows users to switch between connected speakers and headphones at any time, which can be helpful in many situations. However, performing the switch normally involves bringing up the Sound Blaster Connect utility, which can be somewhat inconvenient.

AE5Switcher is an open-source tool designed to let you perform this switch directly from the system tray, as well as set the preferred volume for each device. The application relies on mouse control of the Sound Blaster Connect utility to perform the switch, though it must be noted that it has not been tested with different screen DPI settings.

With this program, you can cycle between your speakers and headphones by just double-clicking the tray icon or selecting the preferred device from the context menu. The icon’s style will change to indicate which device is currently active.

Several parameters can be customized from the program’s settings. You can select the speaker and headphone mode that should be used when switching to a device, as well as set the desired volume.

It is possible to have AE5Switcher close the Sound Blaster Connect utility after the switch is performed, as well as configure the program to start with Windows automatically.