USB vs. PCI sound advice needed

[IT Len]

Hi all,

Just finishing up configuration of my new machine...specs as follows:

ASUS A8N-SLI mobo, AMD 64 3800 chip, 2 gigs Mushkin RAM, twin WD Raptor 74 gig SATA II HD's, with a 250 gig [7200] WD data HD. ATI x800 PCI-E 256 MB graphics card, soundblaster Audigy 2Z Pro sound card, Klipsch speakers...and other basic peripherals.

What I'm trying to do is to configure the PCI sound card to work with a Plantronics USB headset, concurrently. In other words, I'd like to do some things like Ventrilo chat during gaming via the headset, with game sounds coming out on the desktop speakers. I had this running well on my previous machine, but it seems that Creative is an all or nothing device now [did I miss some settings?]. Even when I set the plantronics headset as the default device in ventrilo, the sounds come from the speakers. The only way I can get the headset to work at all is to make it the default audio device in control panel.

And advice would be greatly appreciated, as I keep working on the thousand or so "new machine" bugs that crop up whenever you do a new build!

Thanks again...Len