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Question about 2 sound blaster solutions.

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System Name my system
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard Asus Rog strix b550 gaming wifi II
Cooling noctua nh-u12s se-am4
Memory corsair vengeance 32gb (2x16) 3600mhz
Video Card(s) Asus tuf Nvidia RTX 4070 TI Super
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Display(s) gigabyte aorus cv27f
Case Sharkoon Rebel c50 RGB
Audio Device(s) Creative soundblaster x-ae5 plus
Power Supply Seasonic Focus GX-850 ATX 3.0
Mouse Logitech g502x
Keyboard Perixx Periboard 835
VR HMD none
Software win 11 64 bit home
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Hey all.

I have now for a few months, the soundblaster x-ae5 plus. And while the sound is, obviously, amazing. I cannot get rid of the problem that the sound sometimes swap the channels.
Always the center speaker is affected and get swapped to other channels.

Read online that it can be solved by updating to the latest mobo drivers, and I did that (asus rog strix b550 wifi 2) as well by upting bios, chipset drivers, and so on.
Problem still persists unfortunally.

So i did some more research and found out that it is cause of the mobo only has pcie 4.0 interface, and the card is pcie 1.2, so because the difference is that huge, this problem can comes on. It can be solved by switching the pci lanes in the bios from 4.0 to 3.0, but i dont wanna tinker with that honestly. Not because i think i will lose that much speed for my gpu, but simply because i dont know what to do in the bios to achieve it.
And still, "will" it give me the solution i was hoping for? Im not sure...

So, i thought of going to the onboard sound from the b550 wifi 2, but while the board has an optical out to connect my home cinema setup, it doesnt support 5.1 sound through it, without me paying for some app like dts x or whatever the name is called. So, i gave up on that.

Now while the card cannot be returned anymore cause the 30 day return period is already done, there is still another solution, which is buying a creative card that is connected via usb 2.0, and my b550 does have 2 usb 2.0 ports.

So i was thinking about either the soundblaster X G3, X G6, or the sound blaster GC7.
All 3 have an usb connection, but seemingly the G3 only has an optical in, so most likely it will be the G6 or the G7 depending on the answer of the following question:

My AE5 plus does have some awesome RGB lightning, both on the card, and a light strip, which i would prefer to have inside my case, alongside the sound thats coming out of the usb sound blaster.

So is it possible to have the drivers installed for both the internal ae5 plus, AND the drivers for the G6 or G7, while then having the lightning active on the AE5 plus, but the sound then set in win11 coming out of the G6 or GC7, obviously connected to my edifier S760D 5.1 set?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers from Martijn Spiegelaar

ps. Im also going to look how to move back from pci4.0 to 3.0, and see what the difference is. This post is merely meant for some information. Still not sure what im gonna do.
 
D

Deleted member 229121

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If you have to buy another piece of kit, ditch sound cards and get an external DAC (no drivers required).
 
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Audio Device(s) Soundblaster AE-9
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Software Windows 10 21H2 LTSC
Usually the pcie version is set independently either for each slot or the very least chipset separate to CPU, so if GPU is in CPU pcie slot, it wont be affected by you slowing down the chipset slots.
 
Joined
Sep 23, 2023
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do people still buy soundblaster gear? I have an external Sb card but they dont care to hold a driver for it anymore for windows 7. tactic to get you to buy something new.

my internat SC seemed to go kaput. I bought a small usb sound card. does the job. no audiophile level but it gets it done. $8.
 
Joined
Feb 1, 2019
Messages
3,669 (1.70/day)
Location
UK, Midlands
System Name Main PC
Processor 13700k
Motherboard Asrock Z690 Steel Legend D4 - Bios 13.02
Cooling Noctua NH-D15S
Memory 32 Gig 3200CL14
Video Card(s) 4080 RTX SUPER FE 16G
Storage 1TB 980 PRO, 2TB SN850X, 2TB DC P4600, 1TB 860 EVO, 2x 3TB WD Red, 2x 4TB WD Red
Display(s) LG 27GL850
Case Fractal Define R4
Audio Device(s) Soundblaster AE-9
Power Supply Antec HCG 750 Gold
Software Windows 10 21H2 LTSC
I recently brought an AE9, but I am old school. I did consider external DAC, but had the following concerns.

External clutter.
Way too many DAC on the market, its an example of too much choice in my opinion, ask someone for a suggestion and everyone suggests a different product.
Most DAC having limited inputs/outputs.
No idea if they had post processing features, like bass redirect. (no drivers, which makes me think no, if I am wrong I couldnt find this out).

I wouldnt recommend an AE9 though, I found the headphone device too cumbersome and it added to external clutter. Creative e.g. lock bizarrely the headphone mode to 5.1, and also you have to switch the software mode to go between headphones and speakers, cant output to both at the same time, the quality also sounded noticeably worse in my headphones, so instead I have my usual splitter on the front out at back of sound card. So AE7 would be a better buy if one wanted a discrete sound card solution.

Maybe one day I will buy a cheap external DAC to get experience of using one.
 
Joined
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So, i thought of going to the onboard sound from the b550 wifi 2, but while the board has an optical out to connect my home cinema setup, it doesnt support 5.1 sound through it, without me paying for some app like dts x or whatever the name is called. So, i gave up on that.

You can use HDMI and connect this to your home cinema.
If your home cinema does not support HDMI, there are HDMI splitters that split a HDMI signal to HDMI (picture) output and SPDIF (audio) output.
Every decent amplifier supports either HDMI or SPDIF, often both.

In Linux, you can then choose via pavucontrol to forward the AC3/DTS/EAC3 streams in 5.1 and this works perfectly on my Sony amplifier.
I can send the sound via HDMI and if it is '5.1 sound' then the amplifier is going to receive a 5.1 SPDIF signal.
My HDMI switcher also had a 2.0/5.1 switch so you could easily achieve the right output depending on the content.

Sound quality also depends on the operating system you use.
windows11 uses WASAPI by default. OpenBSD uses sndio. macOS uses Core Audio. FreeBSD/NetBSD use OSS4. Linux uses ALSA.

OpenBSD and FreeBSD have very good sound on almost all motherboards, without the need for a sound card.
This is what my speakers sound like using OpenBSD + music player daemon.

[mid-range setup] Infinity Alpha 5 + Sony STR-DB790
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q3F5QSv0js5rMFArFb8FA9PEvxgSiCY_/view?pli=1
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UbyNFFYB42RxiBajfgaeSgw13QRN0c95/view

[70 EUR newprice all in one budget setup] F&D F550X
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1brKRXCyeyWeI3NakpqBd2glhkfiHs267/view
 

RetroPC

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Joined
Mar 13, 2022
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After reading all the problems that current sound cards have, I am very happy with my X-Fi Titanium Fatality, saludos!
 
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