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[neo96789]

Hello...

I've been using MC for some time now, and am finally taking the plunge to setup a whole-house audio setup using it and NetRemote.

I'm having an issue with my MC PC...actually, with the onboard sound card (realtek AC'97, 5.1).    I've been able to get my zones setup, using Direct Sound, and selecting the pair of outputs for each zone...no problem.   The problem is that audio from the front pair of speakers (zone1) bleeds through to the other two zones.   

I cannot seem to find any reason why it should be bleeding through...I've turned off all DSP settings, and disabled all processing by the AC97 driver...but still bleedthrough.   Zone2 (rear left&right) and Zone3 (center&sub) play just fine as long as zone1 is not in operation.

Has anyone else run into this issue and have a solution?   I'd really like to use all channels on this card if it's possible.   Or is this just a function of the way that the realtek AC97 card works...?

I'm stumped...
David

[JimH]

It's not a familiar problem.  See if you can find an updated driver for the sound chipset.  If not, try another sound card.  You may have to disable onboard sound in the BIOS.

User mastiff here is the Czar of Multi-Zone.  You might read his posts. 

[cncb]

I had the same problem with onboard AC97 sound and was never able to get it to work right.  You should just pick up a cheap PCI card assuming you have a slot open.

[neo96789]

Interestingly enough, I picked up an AOPEN cheap 7.1 card based on the chaintech chipset, and it's even worse than the realtek onboard sound...all the channels bleed through to each other...

I suspect it's something to do with the on-chip DSP and it's "surround" processing...but it seems to continue even if I turn it all off in the driver software...

Oh well...I guess I need to find a card that's not chaintech based....


_D

[Mastiff]

It's a problem with many cards. The only cards I have been able to get fully working with multi-zone are SoundBlaster Live! and Audigy/Audigy 2 (as long as you don't use the digital output, that won't work). Especially with kX Drivers (Google them, you'll find them) they're fully addressable. Then use the built-in sound card for the digital output, if it has one, and you have a receiver with a digital input. That should get you pretty far. Then you can expand with USB sound cards, and you'll be able to fit in all the zones you could ever need.

Higher end sound cards also works, but that's x-pensive.

[sonypoolplr]

It's a problem with many cards. The only cards I have been able to get fully working with multi-zone are SoundBlaster Live! and Audigy/Audigy 2 (as long as you don't use the digital output, that won't work). Especially with kX Drivers (Google them, you'll find them) they're fully addressable.

I just stumbled on to this post by a search and I was wondering, Mastiff, if when you say you got the SoundBlaster Live! and the Audigy/Augigy 2 working with the multi-zone are you saying that you are using two or more of these cards together, or are you using one card with the kX Drivers? If you are using the kX Drivers, do you uninstall the old drivers first and then use the kX ones, or do you just install the kX ones along with the old ones? Also, how will the card show up in J-Rivers?

Thanks so much.

[Mastiff]

These cards can have three zones on one card. And you can uninstall the old drivers, but I think kX will do that automatically as well. The cards show up with different names and numbers so you can separate them from each other.

[sonypoolplr]

Thanks. Not to sound really dense, but I have the Audigy 2 card so if I use the kX drivers the sound card outputs will be separated into three zones that MC can use?

Is there any special steps that need to be followed to get this to happen?

Thanks again.

[Mastiff]

Yes, basically. The drivers make MC see the one card as three different cards, one for the front speakers, one for the rear speakers and one for the center+sub. You can even address them all at the same time, creating a master zone. I haven't updated mine for a while, so I'm not sure if the Audigy 2 will work, but you'll probably find that out on the homepage of the drivers.

[sonypoolplr]

Thank you.