Xonar DGX producing bad sound

[phonebook]

This is teamed with a QC3 and I have tested on various audio sources (pandora, cd's i ripped myself, youtube). It is very clear that the card has a great range of sounds it can produce. But it seems like the settings are messed up.

There is a slight (slight) echo and the vocals are extremely quiet. It's more than that but for a non-audophile that's what I can articulate. The card has the range but the settings are jacked. I've messed with all of the settings in the DGX software (and disabled mobo sound).

I originally installed from CD but then reinstalled from the ASUS website. I can tell the card is great but it's not working right. What should I do?

*windows 7. but once i get it working on 7 i need to get it working on ubuntu. maybe i should just go for ubuntu?

 

[phonebook]

Best answer selected by phonebook.

 

[phonebook]

Do you have it set to stereo or multichannel? If you are using speakers from one or the other and have it set the other way, it can produce sound like that as the vocals usually come from the center channel. Do you have the connector going in the right port? Check that too.

Good guesses. They at least gave me the confidence to start messing with it more. This is my first sound card and I have heard getting them to work can be a pain.

I still don't know for sure what the problem was. I uninstalled about 50 programs because of another issue I'm having. Probably what fixed it was I disabled AMD High Definition Audio in Device Manager. So disabled at mobo level and in Device Manager. Reinstalled the Xonar DGX software and it worked.

For anyone reading this let me attest that this sound card is not subjective. It sounds fantastic. This is exactly why I bought this thing.