Some speakers are silent

I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

Also, this confuses me further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgv3ztps1a...em-02.jpg?dl=0

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I have six speakers Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a
CD, in any player application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small
speakers are silent: the 'centre' and the two rear ones.
If you're playing a stereo source, I'd expect the front pair (and
perhaps the sub) to be active, unless you've got some software mixer
turning 2.0 into artificial 5.1 sound.

Also, this confuses me further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgv3ztps1a...em-02.jpg?dl=0

if you have 5.1 setup then you don't have a "side pair" you have a front
pair, a rear pair, a sub and a centre surely?

On 30/04/17 18:44, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

That is by design. Stereo comes from two speakers, not five or six.

The other speakers are for multichannel playback from movies. Dolby
Surround etc.

You can, if you want, butcher the stereo effect by duplicating the front
sound on the rear, or apply some special effects via some sound
'enhancement' maybe in sound properties (soundcard driver/utility
dependant).

Though after a while of messing about, you'll soon be back to the purity
of enjoying just two, or looking for Anadin in the medicine cabinet.



--
Adrian C

On 4/30/2017 1:44 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

Also, this confuses me further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgv3ztps1a...em-02.jpg?dl=0

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

If the original source of the sound is just a stereo source, then there
are only two speakers that will ever be getting any sound to play at
all. Of course, the subwoofer will be a third speaker that will receive
sound input whenever the sounds are a lower frequency than a trigger
frequency.

But some speakers come with an extra utility, often made by Dolby, which
filter the sound through an extra layer before sending to speakers. This
extra layer converts the stereo input into a Dolby Pro Logic input, and
distributes the sound across all speakers intelligently. Pro Logic
basically turns a stereo source into a pseudo-surround source. See if
such an utility came with your install CD's, or try looking for it on
the mfg's website.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:

On 4/30/2017 1:44 PM, Terry Pinnell wrote:

I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

Also, this confuses me further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgv3ztps1a...em-02.jpg?dl=0

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

If the original source of the sound is just a stereo source, then there
are only two speakers that will ever be getting any sound to play at
all. Of course, the subwoofer will be a third speaker that will receive
sound input whenever the sounds are a lower frequency than a trigger
frequency.

But some speakers come with an extra utility, often made by Dolby, which
filter the sound through an extra layer before sending to speakers. This
extra layer converts the stereo input into a Dolby Pro Logic input, and
distributes the sound across all speakers intelligently. Pro Logic
basically turns a stereo source into a pseudo-surround source. See if
such an utility came with your install CD's, or try looking for it on
the mfg's website.

Yousuf Khan

Thanks all, much appreciate the fast replies.

I'm guessing that my XP PC setup for all that time must have been
running some software of the type Yousuf described. I certainly don't
recall having only those three speakers playing.

Anyway, now reassured, thanks!

Terry

In article ,
lid says...
Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

They are stereo tracks and use the left right speakers only.

In article ,
says...

if you have 5.1 setup then you don't have a "side pair" you have a front
pair, a rear pair, a sub and a centre surely?

They are called side, surround or effect speakers.
Back speakers are used in 7.1 systems.

Terry Pinnell wrote:
I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?

Also, this confuses me further:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgv3ztps1a...em-02.jpg?dl=0

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

The 3D audio technology, seems to be poorly documented today. I'm
not able to find much in the way of tutorial articles (that are
formatted so you can actually read them).

You can do a 3D transform of two channel content, to "fill" six speakers.
You cannot make something from nothing, so such transforms may not be
all that convincing.

So that's a transform from 2ch content -- 5.1ch speakers , to get
usage from the speakers.

My sound chip has "Virtual Theater" as a tick box, which is
5.1ch content -- 2ch speakers. That is supposed to allow slightly
better imaging of audio, than just extracting front left and
front right, and ignoring the other channels. That would be applied
if I were to play a movie from a DVD.

Sensaura used to license these transforms. Then Creative bought them
(to crush them) and eliminate the licenses for Seusaura. For a year or
so, C-Media was unable to offer audio drivers from the web site, until
Sensaura was removed and something else took its place.

So vanilla 2 channel content from some audio file you downloaded,
into 5.1 speakers, would not be very satisfying (if it only used the
front two speakers). Unless a transform in DSP is applied, to mix
the signals and derive signals to apply to all the speakers.

When you play a movie, it has AC3 or multi-channel PCM, which gives
more material to drive speakers with. Then no transform is needed,
because the media/content has sufficient channels on its own,
to drive all the speakers.

Other transforms exist, like converting some quadraphonic content
into 7.1, or other obscure things (maybe 5.1 to 7.1 transform). I
vaguely remember more transforms being available, but that's not to
say it adds anything to the experience. If you were to put a finger
on each speaker cone, at least there would be energy applied to
each by the transform, but as to whether it reinforces more or
less stereo separation, who knows.

There used to be some good tutorial pages on this stuff, but
I can't find them now. And at least one site I was counting on,
archive.org could not capture the important pages because of
a "norobots" file. So the info of historical interest, is now lost.

*******

There is at least one excellent tutorial on EAX, which is for
sound in games, but that has nothing to do with getting music
to play properly on your 5.1 or 7.1 speakers. At least this
one, I still have an archive copy, and this one didn't get
zorched too. And Sensaura gets honorable mention here.

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/200...ogy/index.html

Paul

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?
snip

Win10 supports FLAC decoding natively. In honor of this:

http://www.2l.no/hires/

2ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...reo_96kHz.flac
6ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...mch_96kHz.flac

I don't have 5.1 speakers here, just stereo, and
I'm hoping you can compare those two file, to see
the difference an actual 6ch audio recording makes.

Will Windows Media Player do the right thing ? You decide.
I can't test that here (whether it plays to six channels or not).

I don't control the content :-) And some of the classical music
samples are just awful for testing. For example, the file
with only violins, that's never going to exercise the SUB speaker :-)
So apologies for not finding samples with a better balance
to drive all the speakers. Sites that provide samples like that,
generally record them at a local concert hall, for copyright
reasons. And as a result, their taste in music is limited.

Maybe if you can find a 6ch "1812 Overture", that'll work out the sub.

Paul

Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?
snip

Win10 supports FLAC decoding natively. In honor of this:

http://www.2l.no/hires/

2ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...reo_96kHz.flac
6ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...mch_96kHz.flac

I don't have 5.1 speakers here, just stereo, and
I'm hoping you can compare those two file, to see
the difference an actual 6ch audio recording makes.

Will Windows Media Player do the right thing ? You decide.
I can't test that here (whether it plays to six channels or not).

I don't control the content :-) And some of the classical music
samples are just awful for testing. For example, the file
with only violins, that's never going to exercise the SUB speaker :-)
So apologies for not finding samples with a better balance
to drive all the speakers. Sites that provide samples like that,
generally record them at a local concert hall, for copyright
reasons. And as a result, their taste in music is limited.

Maybe if you can find a 6ch "1812 Overture", that'll work out the sub.

Paul

Thanks Paul, appreciate the trouble you took to research this. I'm out
for most of today but will get on the case asap and report back in a day
or so.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Paul wrote:

Paul wrote:
Terry Pinnell wrote:
I have six speakers, all as shown in these screenshot, and they all play
correctly when tested under either the Realtek or Windows dialogs. These
are the same speakers I used successfully on my old XP PC for years.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mqsbuctrwo...m-02a.jpg?dl=0

Yet when I play a track, whether from my HD or a CD, in any player
application on my Win 10 PC, three of the small speakers are silent: the
'centre' and the two rear ones. What could be the cause and how can I
fix please?
snip

Win10 supports FLAC decoding natively. In honor of this:

http://www.2l.no/hires/

2ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...reo_96kHz.flac
6ch audio sample file: http://www.lindberg.no/hires/test/2L...mch_96kHz.flac

I don't have 5.1 speakers here, just stereo, and
I'm hoping you can compare those two file, to see
the difference an actual 6ch audio recording makes.

Will Windows Media Player do the right thing ? You decide.
I can't test that here (whether it plays to six channels or not).

I don't control the content :-) And some of the classical music
samples are just awful for testing. For example, the file
with only violins, that's never going to exercise the SUB speaker :-)
So apologies for not finding samples with a better balance
to drive all the speakers. Sites that provide samples like that,
generally record them at a local concert hall, for copyright
reasons. And as a result, their taste in music is limited.

Maybe if you can find a 6ch "1812 Overture", that'll work out the sub.

Paul

Better still, the following no-brainer solution I should have spotted
myself!

Just received a reply to my similar simultaneous enquiry in the forum of
my usual player, Media Monkey, suggesting I try enabling 'Speaker Fill'
in that Asus dialog. Now running on six speakers ;-)

I should have done that when I installed this new PC. Don't think I ever
opened that dialog window until yesterday. So I suspect it took me
nearly a year to notice that only three of my six speakers were working!

As will now be obvious, I'm no audiophile, so I'll settle for this.
Wiring up the rear pair in particular (about two decades ago) was a
hassle, so I'm happy to get some sound out of them again.

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

On Sun, 30 Apr 2017 21:40:37 -0400, Paul wrote:

Sensaura used to license these transforms.

Thanks for that little nugget of history, Paul - I never followed that
stuff as it happened, and you've cleared up a couple of oddities in my
vague recollection of how annoying these things were.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then
quietly strangled." - Sir Barnett Cocks (1907-1989)