I have Terratec Aureon 7.1 PCI, a card that can do Dolby encoding. It's hooked to a Maranz SR 7500 receiver and a 5.1 system.

While I'm quite sure, that I cabled all speakers correctly (tested with the receiver), the mixer of the card confuses me:

There are sliders for "Front", "Rear", "Back", "Center" and "Sub".

All sliders work as expected, except "Front". It has no effect. But there is definetely sound on the two front speakers. When I set all sliders to zero there is only output on the two front speakers left, which I can't controll in any way.

Where is that "ghost audio" comming from? Does the card send 7.1 and my receiver does something wired to get it on a 5.1 setup? Is the driver buggy?

Thanks

The driver is a good starting point. The Homebrew CMI 8738/8768 driver fixed a lot for me, however it is optimized for bit-perfect S/P-DIF output.

There is also control panel, where you can check whether your 7.1 configuration works properly.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=49350

That looks interesting thanks. Before I try them, can I use the Dolby Encoding with those drivers as well? I need it for non DD/DTS mutichannel formats as the receiver is connected via Toslink only.

No, this driver doesn't have Dolby Digital Live encoder.

As regarding your problem, make sure that your card is configured as connected to 5.1 speakers:
- go to Start -> Control Panel -> Sounds and multimedia -> Audio tab -> Sound playback -> Advanced -> set 5.1;
- and also run the C-media 8768 driver control panel (it is available in the system Control panel folder or in the system tray) and select 5.1 speakers.

Edit. Also, make sure the X-ear effect is turned off.