Z506 Center Speaker Issue

[westonb27]

Hey people. So I'm having a strange issue. Earlier today all was normal with my new z506 speaker setup. Center speaker was playing music from all sources, and the L, R RL, RR and sub all worked fine. I unplugged everything from my PC since I had to move it. When I put it back, and plugged everything in again, all the speakers started working sans the center. I have a Maximus VIII Gene mobo (where it's all plugged in).Right now the L and R speakers do most of the work, while everything else is normal. Using the audio test, I made sure all the speakers were working fine, and even checked the supreme FX test and the center speaker works in both tests. any other form of audio doesn't come out of the center speaker. I have no idea what to do. I've tried swapping the cables. the center plays fine in the green jack, but then the L and R speakers don't play at all in the orange jack. I feel like there's some stupid setting that just isn't on or something. Can anyone help?

[kirashi]

25 minutes ago, westonb27 said:

Hey people. So I'm having a strange issue. Earlier today all was normal with my new z506 speaker setup. Center speaker was playing music from all sources, and the L, R RL, RR and sub all worked fine. I unplugged everything from my PC since I had to move it. When I put it back, and plugged everything in again, all the speakers started working sans the center. I have a Maximus VIII Gene mobo (where it's all plugged in).Right now the L and R speakers do most of the work, while everything else is normal. Using the audio test, I made sure all the speakers were working fine, and even checked the supreme FX test and the center speaker works in both tests. any other form of audio doesn't come out of the center speaker. I have no idea what to do. I've tried swapping the cables. the center plays fine in the green jack, but then the L and R speakers don't play at all in the orange jack. I feel like there's some stupid setting that just isn't on or something. Can anyone help?

Sounds like a driver issue with your audio software not detecting that you have the center channel plugged in. Although, if you say it plays during tests, but not with say, YouTube, then I have no idea. If it plays audio when you use Windows testing through Playback devices, it should play all audio.

[westonb27]

9 hours ago, kirashi said:

Sounds like a driver issue with your audio software not detecting that you have the center channel plugged in. Although, if you say it plays during tests, but not with say, YouTube, then I have no idea. If it plays audio when you use Windows testing through Playback devices, it should play all audio.

That's why I'm confused. I don't have any idea either as to why it works fine during testing but not any other time. I guess I'll reinstall drivers and see what happens. Should I install Asus's SupremeFX Driver (the one ive been using) or the realtek driver?

[westonb27]

UPDATE: Double checked the speakers with my phone and the center speaker works there. Updated the realtek drivers and ran all the sound tests. Working. Tried playing music from Spotify and Youtube. Nada. It seems like outside of the tests, it uses stereo mode (L R and the SUB) but the center, RL and RR are not being used (something I couldnt recognize last night). Windows recognizes that something is plugged into the C/SUB port on the mobo, but no programs except the sound test want to use it. Not sure what to do.

[kirashi]

1 hour ago, westonb27 said:

UPDATE: Double checked the speakers with my phone and the center speaker works there. Updated the realtek drivers and ran all the sound tests. Working. Tried playing music from Spotify and Youtube. Nada. It seems like outside of the tests, it uses stereo mode (L R and the SUB) but the center, RL and RR are not being used (something I couldnt recognize last night). Windows recognizes that something is plugged into the C/SUB port on the mobo, but no programs except the sound test want to use it. Not sure what to do.

Very interesting... since it works directly from your phone, I would also ensure that whatever software you're using to output sound actually supports 5.1 channel audio. I know my Spotify doesn't and I have the Logitech X-540 speakers. I have to enable the Matrix Mode button on my speakers control pod in order to play 2.1 audio through all 5 speakers, unless I'm playing a DVD or Bluray through VLC that has 5.1 channel audio.

 

Short of checking that, the only thing I can think of is incorrectly configured audio drivers and/or audio software. Maybe there's a setting in your driver software that enables sending the same L/R stereo signal to both the center channel and rear channels for use cases where you don't have 5.1 audio to playback. Might want to check for it.

[westonb27]

32 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Very interesting... since it works directly from your phone, I would also ensure that whatever software you're using to output sound actually supports 5.1 channel audio. I know my Spotify doesn't and I have the Logitech X-540 speakers. I have to enable the Matrix Mode button on my speakers control pod in order to play 2.1 audio through all 5 speakers, unless I'm playing a DVD or Bluray through VLC that has 5.1 channel audio.

 

Short of checking that, the only thing I can think of is incorrectly configured audio drivers and/or audio software. Maybe there's a setting in your driver software that enables sending the same L/R stereo signal to both the center channel and rear channels for use cases where you don't have 5.1 audio to playback. Might want to check for it.

I'll be playing with audio drivers for the foreseeable future. Thanks for the input. Appreciated.

[westonb27]

Fixed the issue. For anyone using a ROG VIII motherboard with SupremeFX having this issue:

 

Uninstall the sonic studio suite from windows. 

Reboot

Install Sonic Studio from the driver disk that came with your motherboard. Or get it from here

Reboot

Enable Surround in Sonic Studio

Profit. 

 

Here's a video for reference as well

 

Hopefully this helps anyone having this issue in the future.