nateify
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- Oct 13, 2022
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Hey all. I recently got a new motherboard and the sound quality seems technically good but it sounds like there is a permanent fake surround/separation/room correction/spacial/etc type effect and it is driving me insane. I am using a completely clean and fresh install of Windows 10 and I noticed the issue immediately.
I have this motherboard: Gigabyte X570S AORUS PRO AX (rev. 1.1)
I have tried every driver individually here from this page for Windows 10: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570S-AORUS-PRO-AX-rev-11/support#support-dl-driver
That's 3 different versions of Realtek HD Audio and the DTS thing.
I have 100% disabled enhancements and spacial sound in every driver version I tried. I also tried a few different formats such as 16 bit 44.1, 16 bit 48, 32bit, etc which made no difference
I vaguely remembered with one of my older systems which also had Realtek drivers a Windows update caused an issue similar to what I am describing. And what I did back then was the following: go in to Device Manager, find the Realtek Device, and change the driver to the Microsoft one for High Definition Audio device. After a reboot and again fiddling with settings, it sounds completely identical. This is a Microsoft signed driver, not Realtek.
Granted my old system was fairly ancient by now and with barebones onboard audio, but I DON'T think I am somehow conditioned to like bad audio and getting confused here. I have a good pair of headphones, Sennheiser GAME ONE, these are open backed. And on this new motherboard, everything sounds like it's further away to the left and right, or sometimes further behind. This is NOT a volume/gain/etc type issue, the sound stage just sounds wrong, it really sounds like post processing. At one point I had the DTS app thing on my system, I fiddled with it, changed it to off mode, etc, none of it made a difference. I do NOT have the old style Realtek audio manager on my system which looks like this:
Any help with getting this fixed would be extremely appreciated. This affects all apps, video in the browser, foobar, musicbee, MPC-HC, VLC, etc. In case this has any possible correlation, I notice the C Sub audio jack thing appears lit up, although I have only a single 3.5mm stereo plug inserted into the normal line out jack.
Edit: Hardware ID, for good measure: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_1220&SUBSYS_1458A0D2&REV_1001
Edit 2: After posting all of this, I got it solved. In case this helps any future person. I seem to have Realtek audio drivers version 6.0.9175.1, not sure exactly where I got those since they are not on Gigabyte's page, seems to be a few versions too old, but maybe this was the one built into the Windows OS at the time I installed. I DID have Realtek HD audio manager buried in my system at "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA", it looks like this instead of the old one I posted above:
Most crucially, turning OFF smart headphone amp and re-disabling audio enhancements (it got turned back on) seems to have fixed the issue and the sound stage sounds much "closer" if you will, none of that odd sound where it sounds too far to the left and right or behind me. Also I have nothing DTS related on my system at this point, I removed anything relating to it in programs and features.
I have this motherboard: Gigabyte X570S AORUS PRO AX (rev. 1.1)
I have tried every driver individually here from this page for Windows 10: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570S-AORUS-PRO-AX-rev-11/support#support-dl-driver
That's 3 different versions of Realtek HD Audio and the DTS thing.
I have 100% disabled enhancements and spacial sound in every driver version I tried. I also tried a few different formats such as 16 bit 44.1, 16 bit 48, 32bit, etc which made no difference
I vaguely remembered with one of my older systems which also had Realtek drivers a Windows update caused an issue similar to what I am describing. And what I did back then was the following: go in to Device Manager, find the Realtek Device, and change the driver to the Microsoft one for High Definition Audio device. After a reboot and again fiddling with settings, it sounds completely identical. This is a Microsoft signed driver, not Realtek.
Granted my old system was fairly ancient by now and with barebones onboard audio, but I DON'T think I am somehow conditioned to like bad audio and getting confused here. I have a good pair of headphones, Sennheiser GAME ONE, these are open backed. And on this new motherboard, everything sounds like it's further away to the left and right, or sometimes further behind. This is NOT a volume/gain/etc type issue, the sound stage just sounds wrong, it really sounds like post processing. At one point I had the DTS app thing on my system, I fiddled with it, changed it to off mode, etc, none of it made a difference. I do NOT have the old style Realtek audio manager on my system which looks like this:
Any help with getting this fixed would be extremely appreciated. This affects all apps, video in the browser, foobar, musicbee, MPC-HC, VLC, etc. In case this has any possible correlation, I notice the C Sub audio jack thing appears lit up, although I have only a single 3.5mm stereo plug inserted into the normal line out jack.
Edit: Hardware ID, for good measure: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_1220&SUBSYS_1458A0D2&REV_1001
Edit 2: After posting all of this, I got it solved. In case this helps any future person. I seem to have Realtek audio drivers version 6.0.9175.1, not sure exactly where I got those since they are not on Gigabyte's page, seems to be a few versions too old, but maybe this was the one built into the Windows OS at the time I installed. I DID have Realtek HD audio manager buried in my system at "C:\Program Files\Realtek\Audio\HDA", it looks like this instead of the old one I posted above:
Most crucially, turning OFF smart headphone amp and re-disabling audio enhancements (it got turned back on) seems to have fixed the issue and the sound stage sounds much "closer" if you will, none of that odd sound where it sounds too far to the left and right or behind me. Also I have nothing DTS related on my system at this point, I removed anything relating to it in programs and features.
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