Okay here's my situation... I have a Santa Cruz, and it has a virtual 5.1 option where center and sub channels are synthesized from the front a rear channels of a 4 channel stream. This can be enabled or disabled thru the easy to use control panel. Here is the official explanation of this technology:



Also, my (probably sub-par) Creative Labs speakers (Inspire 5.1 5200) have "Proprietary CMSS® upmix technology for 5.1 surround sound with 4-channel Sound Blaster® sound cards."

I do not know at all what this does, but I assume it is some built in mechanism in the speakers that "upmixes" a 4 channel signal to a 5.1 channel signal

Now, I am wondering if it would be best to disable this, and turn on the "Dolby Surround" option (I assume this is a sort of non-discrete 3.1 option?) to get sound through all of my speakers, or would it be best to turn on the virtual 5.1 system on my card, and use the "stereo > 4 channel DSP," or maybe it would be best to keep the 4 channel output from foobar, turn off the "virtual 5.1" and let the "Proprietary CMSS® upmix technology" take care of creating the extra channels.

Hopefully someone out there has a Santa Cruz, or the creative speakers, and has had time to experiment, because unfortunately I have not.

If not, maybe someone can advise me on this issue.

Thanks!

ps. Don't hate on my hardware please.... it's pretty decent for a poor college kid like myself!

EDIT: Added info about speakers.

Dolby Surround converts 2ch to 4ch. The delaying and filtering described in the summary are used to derive the rear channel outputs from the front signal.

Combine it with your CMSS, see if you like it more than the simple channel replicator. (Convert stereo to 4 channels)

Uhm, the TBSC will mirror the front to rears in the drivers if you output a stereo signal, so you do NOT need stereo -> 4 channels. That was added for more recent cards that no longer support this.

Personally, I prefer a simple Stereo x2 to a matrixed surround field. (Which your card does already) It retains alot of the stereo spatial cues better.