Stereo playing on full 7.1 with my card?

[kemperkipie]

I have Asus Xonar D2X with Razer Tiamat 7.1
When I play a stereo mp3 file, it only uses the front speakers of the headset, instead of all 10 (Tiamat has 10 drivers for Sub/center in both ears)

When I activate "Flexbass" in the Asus Xonar D2X control panel, I manage to get the Subwoofer to work as well, to deliver the bass. But the center / side / back speakers are sitting there doing nothing.

How can I make them work, without my audio suffering from some kind of echo etc. etc.?

(the 2.0 option on the Tiamat's control panel is not an option, it's a broken function if you ask me)

Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem... turned out I had the centre and mic jacks back to front.

 

[kemperkipie]

I just found out, that when I turn on "7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter" and move the Front left, and Front right speaker just a millimeter. the other speakers suddenly work...

I think this is a major driver bug, because when I activate the shifter, without moving front right and left, the back speaker will be unused..

But anyway, now I know how to make all speakers work

 

[gamerk316]

Not really. Stereo audio will play as stereo. Simply having 7.1 will not making stereo sources play as surround.

The D2X should have a Dolby Pro Logic option, which should upmix stereo sources to 7.1.

 

[kemperkipie]

It has Dolby Pro Logic IIx, but that sounds terrible.
I just think it's pretty useless to let the Center, Side and Rear speakers do nothing, when you're playing Stereo sound.
Normal soundcards, like my Integrated Realtek have a Speaker fill option..... I wonder why Asus didnt think of that

 

[gamerk316]

Why? Its a headphone, so why would you need speaker fill?

 

[kemperkipie]

Headphone with 10 speakers..... useless to let 7 of them sit in silence..

Besides what I forgot to mention, I connected my sound-card to my Home Cinema Set lately.. Just with an Optical Audio Cable.. But if I play music, it's really annoying that the back-speakers won't work..

 

[mamailo]

Then use another player for doing the upmix. For example in MPC-HC set output to 5.1 or 7.1 speakers and let the card do the rest.

 

[gamerk316]

Headphone with 10 speakers..... useless to let 7 of them sit in silence..

Besides what I forgot to mention, I connected my sound-card to my Home Cinema Set lately.. Just with an Optical Audio Cable.. But if I play music, it's really annoying that the back-speakers won't work..

Well, thats a limitation of SPDIF. Only three formats are supported: 2.0 PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS. So for most audio sources, SPDIF = Stereo.

 

[kemperkipie]

But doesn't DTS sent out more channels? Because I select DTS when I play through my Home Cinema Set

 

[gamerk316]

Only if the audio is already in DTS format. Most PC audio is NOT in Dolby/DTS format, and thus will come over as 2.0. That being said, the D2X is fully capable of encoding to either standard.

Note that if the audio is stereo, converting to Dolby/DTS doesn't by itself give you 5.1; you'd also have to enable Dolby Pro Logic.

 

[kemperkipie]

But if I want to set Dolby Pro Logic (Which actually sounds pretty horrible) I have to keep switching my channels between every audio format...
Is there any way to use all possible speakers, with stereo audio. And normal surround sound, when playing movies or games supporting 5.1 audio?

Without having to change Channels and tweak settings every single time I switch?

Sounds to me like an option called "Speaker fill" in most soundcards.. but Asus doesn't have any option like that.

 

[kemperkipie]

VLC now fills my speakers.. It's probably a VLC-function..
But the problem is: It works perfectly on my Back speakers, Side speakers and Center.... but he still doesn't pick up the subwoofer...... I can still use FlexBass on my soundcard options... but the problem there is: It's not even close to the bass-experience of when I FlexBass a regular stereo-sound, like Windows Mediaplayer and Youtube on my front channel only...
Anyone an idea why? or how to fix?