Three questions for you guys...
1: My current setup is an SB-Z, Windows and SB-Z control panel set to 5.1 speakers, "play stereo mix to digital output" enabled, and using optical output to my Modi 2 Uber / Magni 2 Uber stack. I get audio, but my currently played games don't really have 3D sound so I just wanted to confirm that I have everything configured correctly.
No this isn't entirely right - when SB-Z is set to "Headphones" it will do all the behind-the-scenes trickery for Windows to be "in 5.1" - you just set it to "Headphones" and that is taken care of behind the scenes.
The "Stereo mix to digital output" is required to use an external DAC - that's correct to be set. With the card itself set to 5.1 you may only get the front L/R channels from some material though, as opposed to everything. Set the card to "Headphones" or "Stereo", leave the "stereo mix to digital" engaged, and you're set. IME I've not noticed any difference between "Headphones" and "Stereo" and I think all it's doing is setting relays on the card to enable either the front L/R analog or headphone analog outputs - if you're bypassing those it doesn't seem to make any difference IME. But if you want to be "extra certain" just leave it in "Headphones" mode and Windows will "believe" it is outputting to 5.1, and the Sound Blaster is downmixing to stereo.
2: When using this setup, the Bass toggle and bar in SBX Pro Studio is disabled. SBX Surround and that horrific Crystalizer still work but I'm kind of curious why bass get's disabled. Assume it has to do with optical out and the stereo mix, but is there any way to adjust bass short of using the EQ? The simple toggle and bar were really convenient when switching between games and music.
Because you're in 5.1 - it wants to use the 5.1 crossover settings, which are accessed from Speaker Settings. Since you're only taking the L/R output those channels are unavailable for your playback equipment. Set the card to "Stereo" or "Headphones" and the Bass slider will become available again (and this works via analog or digital out). If your DAC could take DTS or AC-3 (it can't) you could alternately just send out the 5.1 digital signal (go into Encoder and its there) and then adjust bass via the Speaker Settings.
3: Is there a way that I can enable the center/subwoofer output on the card itself without changing anything about how the headphones are working?
No. The card (no sound card, really) is capable of doing an active 2.1 output - you need to take a stereo signal out from the card and cross it over externally, the Buttkicker will provide this functionality on its own, and there are also some headphone amps (e.g. Fischer Amps) that have "shaker output" connections as well. If your DAC or pre-amp has multiple sets of outputs you could also go from there, but that won't be an active crossover (but honestly you don't explicitly need such with headphones and a TT shaker).
I was thinking about picking up a Buttkicker Gamer 2 for my chair. Mixer/output settings somewhere? Perhaps something to do with that bass management/redirection option? Has somebody else has already done something similar and knows for sure? (I don't have any other audio devices to plug in right now so it will take a few days to borrow something and check myself)
You'd want to hook up the line out from the DAC into the Gamer 2 and then feed the output from Gamer 2 into the headphone amp, and it will provide the crossover you need. See Buttkicker's quickstart guide for proper connections: http://www.thebuttkicker.com/downloads/manuals/BK-GR2_QSG-Outlines-Web.pdf
Did you disable the motherboard's on-board audio, in the BIOS, when you installed the SB-Z?
:rolleyes:
I'm not that knowledgeable about settings for the Sound Blaster Z, but something tells me the "Play Stereo Mix to Digital Output" is not part of the SBX Headphone surround sound feature?
"Play Stereo Mix to Digital Output" is Creative's workaround to device selection limits imposed in Vista - under Vista and later you can only have a single audio device selected as the output, and digital and analog outputs from a card are treated separately. In order to enable full DSP functionality, the Creative drivers will just pass the "analog mix" to the digital output, and you can get whatever DSP, EQ, etc features you want. If you didn't engage this, you have to enable the Z's digital output as the output device (in Windows), and some functionality will be unavailable. I don't know on the SoundCore parts if this mix is required for THX/SBX Surround, but on the X-Fi it is required for full CMSS and EAX functionality via digital output.
Asus, Razer, Auzen, etc have implemented their own workarounds to this change in Windows Audio, which don't always mirror Creative's options or settings (e.g. my Razer AC-1 you just "enable digital output" in the drivers).
