New soundcard making my speakers sound fuzzy and not good

xxamdxx

Member
I just got the s.b. x-fi extreme fidelity pro. series, and when i put it in it made my speakers soudn blown. I got all the updated drivers and checked and deviced manager says its working fine but it still makes me speakers sound blown. what could be doing this?
 
For one thing look over the equalizer as well as bass and tremble controls found on the volume control panel if installed. For the Xtreme Gamer model here the quick uncheck to disable the equalizer allows easier bass and tremble adjustment there for anything.

If the bass is up too high that will make a number of speaker sets sound like crud with the woofer rattling. The equalizer without fuss and left at the defaults will sound all mid range until you spend the time tweaking everything there. Try disabling that to bring the bass knob about 60% and the tremble up over 70% to see how they sound then.
 
yeah i have my bass and treble turned down but i had the x-fi extreme audio before this and i had everything maxed and it sounded clean and crisp and good. With this even with the bass and treble turned down it sounds like its not right for some reason, and its not as bassy anymore : (
 
The Xtreme Audio is a totally different model more like the Gamer. One fast way to find out if the card is bad would be simply plugging in a different set. If you still hear distorted and garbage for sound you would know the card needs to be returned.

If you suddenly hear good sound when swapping speakers the problem would be with the speakers themselves. Another however besides any hardware fault to consider would be seeing Vista drivers tossed onto XP!

I ran into that here when first setting up the current build seeing the MS updates as well as the Creative auto updater download Vista drivers while getting the sound running on XP! One trip to the support site and selecting XP as the OS saw the 7/4/2007 web installer3 intended for Vista listed along with the Dec. 2006 XP version! Lately went going to pay another visit someone had finally got around to seeing that mess cleaned up since only the latest one update for XP was displayed.
 
I had already put the same sound card into my other computer with differrent speakers and it still made the same bad noise, I then returned it and got another one and it did the same, so I dont know maybe im doing something wrong. At this point I'm not sure if its a setup problem or its another defected one, but the way this sounds it can't be just how the sound card is because it doesnt sound good or rich or anything
 
Here I replaced a good working Audio model and later finding out that the card wasn't the actual problem. Once the Gamer was in the same problems came up until the version problem with the updates was corrected. I knew the speakers were good from seeing those work well with the Audigy model in the previous build.

Vista drivers on XP? That would be a likely thought along with how the audio console is configured. If you went for MS updates and ended up seeing a Vista update go on you'll have a list of problems simply from being a driver set for the wrong version of Windows.
 
I dont think it is the vista drivers because I put in the disc that it came with that said xp drivers and then i did it that way
 
I suspect the default seeing the equalizer enabled with all sliders at the center for mid range as well as other settings would need to be changed in order to see(or hear) the best results. What are the speakers rated for? Are those a small pair of stereo, 2 1/2, 5.1, or 7.1 there?

The default is 2 1/2 on the X-Fi line of cards. You then select the correct setting for the speakers you have. If the mixer's levels are all the way up for the Windows mixer as well as the Creative sound mixer and you crank the volume all the way up on the speakers that would be no surprise of hearing a high level of distortion if the nedia played besides the Windows sounds wasn't clean.

What brand of speakers are you running there anyways?
 
I have klipsch pro media 5.1 ultras, I have it set at 5.1. I have all the mixers up on the entertainment mode and I think all the mixers are up for windows so maybe thats it?

Ok i just turned down all the mixers to half way and it deffinatly sounds better but its still not as rich as my extreme audio was, and thats not even as good of a card
 
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The Xtremer Audio isn't that bad a card as some would have you believe. The mixer mainly determines the levels for inputs like mic, line-in, midi-synth, auxillery, and for recording the "what you hear".

The X-Fi crystalizer, EAX, and 3D for headphones are enabled for both 5.1 and headphone use here. The one thing that proved to be the one annoyance was the SVM or smart volume manager option. That is the one thing left in the off position at all times here and could be what you are having a problem with.
 
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