5.1 Speakers - Sound only coming from 2

Aqualoon

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Feb 10, 2010
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Speakers: Logitech Z506
Sound Card: Asus Xonar U5
System: Razer Blade 2016

Sound only comes out of the two front speakers, however when testing the speakers through the control panel and the Asus software all the speakers ding/ping/make a sound indicate it's working. All the settings are set to 5.1 - any thoughts?

See below...

C7a6E0.jpg
 
Solution
-It could be set to headphone mode instead of speaker mode. Try that first, on my card it switches between 2 channel and 5.1 mode when you do this.

This works with my Creative labs X-Fi Fatal1ty card so it might not be the same for yours...

Go into Control panel, Hardware and sound, sound. (I made a desktop shortcut for it as i change settings often)

In sound, Playback tab, Speakers, Configure. Select 5.1, then the speakers you want to use.
Note: Clicking the speakers to limited range speakers will send the bass to your sub. If you click Full range speakers it wont send bass to the sub.
Hint: In windows sound\speakers, if you want to keep "Stereo" and the older "Matrix" and SQ, and force Stereo Dolby. Uncheck the Optional...
Even with 5.1 or other speaker setups many audio sources(almost all music) are still stereo (2 channel).

Try to turn on the upmix option and see how it works for you(some users like it, while others do not).

If you have a source of 5.1(DVD/BD/some streaming services or many games) that should not require any upmixing.
 

need4speeds

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-It could be set to headphone mode instead of speaker mode. Try that first, on my card it switches between 2 channel and 5.1 mode when you do this.

This works with my Creative labs X-Fi Fatal1ty card so it might not be the same for yours...

Go into Control panel, Hardware and sound, sound. (I made a desktop shortcut for it as i change settings often)

In sound, Playback tab, Speakers, Configure. Select 5.1, then the speakers you want to use.
Note: Clicking the speakers to limited range speakers will send the bass to your sub. If you click Full range speakers it wont send bass to the sub.
Hint: In windows sound\speakers, if you want to keep "Stereo" and the older "Matrix" and SQ, and force Stereo Dolby. Uncheck the Optional speakers: box for center. This will force the sound card to use the older Matrix decoder to send the mono center to the remaining 4 speakers. If the sound is decoded in other formats usually the sound chip will detect that and switch to the correct decoder such as Dolby Digital.

Oddly you must also in the card's program like your sonic studio enable bass redirection. There should also be a crossover setting and bass boost, ect. The speakers must be set to limited range speakers in Windows too.
 
Solution