Mark Twain wrote:
Thing is it's an intermittent problem..

I'll try working with the green plug...
these are new speakers from when all
the electronics in my home got fried
when the guy wired it for 220 instead
of 110, remember?


In fact, I'm in the process of getting
ductless A/C and I told them the story
of the outage and re-wiring so I'm being
careful not to let that happen again!


Here are my sound controls for the speakers:

http://i66.tinypic.com/2pzzfjr.jpg

http://i67.tinypic.com/2w223xg.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/2ih07qc.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/1238wa8.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/jjurf4.jpg

http://i67.tinypic.com/huoemv.jpg

http://i67.tinypic.com/10seqdy.jpg

http://i66.tinypic.com/514rk0.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/2ccmp84.jpg


Here's the sound controls for applications:

http://i67.tinypic.com/auk0nd.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/30ii7h3.jpg

http://i68.tinypic.com/4t7kn6.jpg

http://i68.tinypic.com/120i837.jpg

Robert

Well, reading the manual, the HK695 does two things.

1) 2.0 computer output to 2.1 speaker output

2) 4.0 computer output to 2.1 speaker output

When you use both the green and the black connector,
the computer should be set to "four channel", perhaps
referred to in the disco era as "quadraphonic".

The RealTek sound hardware, currently driven by the
Microsoft driver, I don't see a reference to output
mode. Whether it's 2.0, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 isn't clear. The
panel shows you have four jacks for a total of eight
channels (7.1).

The thing is, the "multimedia content" on your computer,
starts with an initial set of channels. If you download
a typical consumer tune, it might be stereo. If you had
WinAmp running, that would be 2.0 stereo source.

Some sound chips have software, to "transform" the sound
field of the source content (2.0 MP3, 5.1 Movie Soundtrack)
to the number of channels the user selected (2.0, 2.1, 5.1, 7.1).
This might be referred to as HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function).

So if you were listening to a movie which only had a stereo
sound track, yet you had the sound card set to 5.1, the
software would "synthesize" the missing channels. It doesn't
sound as good as real 5.1, but you get a slight bit more
depth of field from the transformation.

However, your *speakers* have their own HRTF. And your
speakers only have two input modes. 2.0 and 4.0.

And another factor here, is the original owner of the patent
for at least one of the transfer functions, sold the patent
to Creative. Creative "yanked" the licensing from it's
competitors. This meant that CMedia had to pull its
drivers from the website for an entire year, while
they re-wrote their driver and removed the
transformation matrix stuff.

Source Realtek HK695
(at a guess)
(not verified)
2.0 2.0 2.0 __\ 2.1 out
5.1 2.1 4.0 /
5.1
7.1

One issue, is back when sound cards were PCI, those
products still had a software support for 4.0
(green jack and black jack). AFAIK, the RealTek of
today, is likely missing 4.0 output. If you set the
RealTek to 5.1, then the "Center/Sub" receive a signal,
which in effect "subtracts some energy from front
stereo and back stereo channels". So selecting 5.1
on the RealTek level, isn't "exactly right" either.

In summary, you probably want to play any source
you want on the left. Don't worry about that. The
media player is likely to see the Realtek column
is 2.0 and the source will do the right thing.

The RealTek should be set to Stereo. I didn't see
a setting in the Microsoft GUI admitting only
the green jack has a signal on it.

Once the RealTek is stereo, plug the green plug
of the HK695 in. The 2.0 signal in, will have
a low pass filter applied to Left and Right,
and the LPFs will be mixed together. This
drives the Sub unit of your speakers. Maybe the
sub will be given a signal from 60Hz to around 200Hz.
And the rest of the energy will come from the
wine-glass side speakers.

One thing I'm worried about here, is whether the
hum might be coming from the HK695 HRTF digital
processing or something. If the RealTek isn't driving
a signal on the black plug, maybe while the plug
is "floating", the HRTF inside the HK695 is doing
a transform on it, and redirecting "energy" below
200Hz to the sub unit.

By disconnecting the Black cable from the HK695,
then in theory it should stop trying to mix in
the signal from the Black pair of channels.

If you had an older sound card, a PCI one,
it might have the old Quadraphonic setting
and with that in place, you could try the HK695
doing the 4.0 to 2.1 transformation. The front
and rear speakers would be mixed to make a stereo
signal. All four channels would be LPF and mixed
together, to drive the sub. That's roughly how
you might turn 4.0 to 2.1.

*******

If you get the actual RealTek driver, the panel
can look like this.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/a...re1-png.52998/

You can look to see if it has a Quadraphonic setting
and supports 4.0 or not. By clicking the orange
tick boxes, you can change the output mode of the
RealTek.

The "dismiss" in that panel, is on the upper right.
Somebody "on drugs" did the GUI design :-) It
always annoys me when I see it. But I have
installed that here. If you hold your
mouse over the "plugs" near the top of the
panel, you'll be in for a surprise (over the top
visual effect).

This is a Realtek driver page. Tick the "I accept".
This "I accept" nonsense, prevents me from giving
the direct links I'd like to use.

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...Audio%20Codecs

If you're using the 64-bit OS, then

*64bits* Vista, Windows7, Windows8, Windows8.1, R2.82 2017/7/26 264424k Global
Windows10 Driver only (Executable file)

Click the Global button and the download will begin.
It'll take a while.

That driver will give that goofy control panel, and
the branding will be RealTek. If you don't like it,
you can go to Programs and Features and remove it.
The Dell "auto-updater" might try to destroy the
RealTek driver install, and I don't know what the
Dell stuff does when a "foreign" driver is present.

If you got the driver from Dell, Dell might sneak
their logo into the panel.

In any case, you have options other than to use
the rather boring Microsoft generic panels. In
your search for the right setting for the
number of plugs you're using.

2.0 green plug only
4.0 green and black plugs both used

I hope the above isn't too much to digest. The
sound software has really gotten out of hand.

HTH,
Paul