Xonar DX, speaker fill (4 channel stereo)

[Rand]

I just loaded on the latest Uni Xonar drivers and I still can't get stereo upmix without having to manually set my sound configuration to 2 speakers manually (sigh...) which means you forget to put it back to 5.1 for games (and need to quit, manually set back to 5.1 then reopen the game)

Argh :/ I guess this feature will never be properly supported on these cards.

Reading through this thread it wouldn't appear very many people see this as useful functionality, but I agree with you. The inability to upmix stereo content without constantly flicking back and forth between 5.1 and two speakers all the time is the reason I sold my Xonar DX last year.
It's too much of a hassle to deal with when competing cards have no problem offering it.

[AbRASiON]

I just loaded on the latest Uni Xonar drivers and I still can't get stereo upmix without having to manually set my sound configuration to 2 speakers manually (sigh...) which means you forget to put it back to 5.1 for games (and need to quit, manually set back to 5.1 then reopen the game)

Argh :/ I guess this feature will never be properly supported on these cards.

Reading through this thread it wouldn't appear very many people see this as useful functionality, but I agree with you. The inability to upmix stereo content without constantly flicking back and forth between 5.1 and two speakers all the time is the reason I sold my Xonar DX last year.
It's too much of a hassle to deal with when competing cards have no problem offering it.

A guy at work claims he has no problem with it,... that's what baffles me.
Also the unixonar drivers apparently fix this (??!) yet they never have for me.

[CityEater]

Who cares why I want to do it, I do, I want 4 speakers playing audio instead of 2, it's not hard - my movies do it in the loungeroom, my Realtek does it, it's not a hard request.
Not worrying about the rest.[/quote]

Its all good man, if you want to split it across 4 channels why not? You can do it in playback software easily enough and that gives you some flexibility so it doesn't permanently rig your system like that. I use Jriver as my media player and its second to none in terms of quality and features. Easily rig duplicate fronts in rears and set it up as an alternate output so you can flip a switch and return to normal if you want. Very nice software, worth a look.

But they're right in that %99.9 of music is mixed for stereo and the added speakers just increase interference and ruin your stereo imaging. There's nothing wrong with that, it just isn't how music is mixed and the motivation of an audiophile is to hear the music as the artist intended.

I think there used to be a setting in the windows sound manager that could do this as well but poking around I couldn't find it in windows 7, might be easier to do it in software. My suggestion is to avoid doing any virtualization on the amp, in my experience that always sounds awful but YMMV.

I feel a good stereo sounds three dimensional anyway when positioned and set up right but if you want to have a go at some 'quad' sound power to you. There are a handful of albums available mixed for 4 channel if you're interested.

[CityEater]

Whups just realised how old this thread is. How did I end up in here? Anyway the other thing you could do if you had a decent enough amp is just set the rears up as a seperate zone which most of them have now (even the cheapy $300 ones) and run it like that. Although I imagine you've solved this by now.

[AbRASiON]

Well I think the argument for or against is long over - fact is /[most]/ cards actually offer a speaker-fill option - as does the Asus, it just requires fidgeting with the control panel /EVERY TIME/ to get it working - and that's frustrating as all hell.