Here’s a quick breakdown of how the Line In and Line Out ports work on your Arctis 7 transmitter. Note - this applies only to the legacy Arctis 7 and does not apply to Arctis 7+, Nova 7 or Nova 7 Gen 2.
Line In only
When you connect a device to Line In, that audio will play through the headset while the headset is powered on.
Headset must be ON
Audio from Line In is routed to the headset
Line Out only
When you connect speakers or another audio device to Line Out, USB audio will pass through to Line Out only when the headset is powered off.
Headset must be OFF
USB audio is routed to Line Out
Line In and Line Out together
When both Line In and Line Out are connected, the transmitter can pass audio from Line In directly to Line Out - but only when the headset is powered off.
Headset must be OFF
Audio from Line In is passed to Line Out
Quick summary
| Setup | Headset power state | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Line In only | ON | Audio from Line In plays through the headset |
| Line Out only | OFF | USB audio passes through to Line Out |
| Line In + Line Out | OFF | Audio from Line In passes through to Line Out |
💡The transmitter changes how audio is routed depending on whether the headset is powered on or off, so if something is not coming through where you expect, the first thing to check is the headset power state.