X-fi fatality center spea

Question

I am running x64 with the drivers posted on the creative website, and I have the x-fi fatality card. I have Logitech Z-5500, and I know everything is plugged in correctly. When I go to test my speaker channels/assign them, everything else works great. When it comes to the middle, I hear a muffeled "Front Center" comming from the sub. Any suggestions on what to do?

Answer 1

Let me try to help him while helping myself since I see that moderators are actually posting.
I have an X-FI Xtreme Music card and brand new Creative Inspire T6060 5. speakers... Center channel does NOT work either. If I put my ear to the center speaker, I get that muffled sound matt talks about.
To answer possible questions in advance:
- The speakers are not defecti've... how do I know this? I plugged the center speaker to a front/rear speaker jack on the subwoofer and it worked perfectly.
- Be it known... one thing is the "speakers" and another the "subwoofer"... The subwoofer's center channel jack "may" be defecti've, but I hope not. This seems to be a software issue, but if anything in my speaker system is indeed defecti've, then it's the subwoofer's center channel jack.
- A friend once had this exact problem with other creative speakers and an Audigy card... he fixed it by turning off the decoder on the card since the speakers already had one... then the center channel worked. HOWEVER, I do this, and it still doesnt work.
- Another problem is that headphone jack that looks like a remote controller... the one that also controls the volume. When I plug the headphones, I can't hear anything... I have to unplug the rear speaker wire from the subwoofer and plug it in the front speaker jack, and viceversa, and then the headphones work... it seems like the little volume controller with the headphones jack is inverting the speaker setup, but that's another issue that comes SECOND... I'm most worried about getting that center channel working since it's a problem lots of people are having.
- I did enough searches for speaker problems on the Inspire T6060 and found nothing... it wasn't until I searched for the soundblaster x-fi that I found tons of people complaining about that center channel being dead. So, it has to be a software issue.
I have 2 hypothesis for the problem:
. The subwoofer's center channel jack is defecti've.
Stupid me, I drilled the walls and did a beautiful installation of invisible wiring, mounted the speakers on the wall, etc... I did not expect brand new creative speakers to be defecti've out of the box. So, needless to mention, I am not going to return these.... if anything, it's the subwoofer that needs to go.
2. One of the 0 million different sound modification options is actually killing that center channel. A simple software conflict which can be resolved by clicking or unclicking the right checkbox.... but which one
That's the issue... the rest of this post, is pretty much venting. Read it if you're a moderator whose job is to gather feedback. I represent everyone that I know so it's not a lone year old whose opinion doesn't matter.
I miss the days when there was only 2 simple settings... ON or OFF... I've been a computer technician for 0 years and in 2 days I've already spent over 0 hours in the creative software suite looking for something that's actually useful. The THX audio control (where I hope to find the answer) does the same thing as the volume control, which does the same thing as the console that pops up when you put a movie, which does the same thing as the console that pops up when you change the mode to gamer... one or two options each one that the other one doesn't have, but easily could. SO many programs, hundreds of megabytes of wasted space... and the "diagnostics utility" all it does is tell you that everything is fine even when it isn't... not even a LINK pointing to a place where you MIGHT get lucky and find a solution.
THANK YOU however, for not installing browser plugin crap without permission... The media go toolbar at the desktop was very annoying but at least you make it uninstallable. Again, THANK YOU for not shoving us even MORE software trash.
There are about a dozen utilities in the software bundle... all very pretty and so far bug free... but, they all of them seem to do the same... test speakers, but none offer any solutions or troubleshooting for issues. Just a lot of different interfaces and "cool" different names when they all do the same one way or another... test speakers. My advice, quit wasting our hard disk space and just make ONE utility for speaker and soundcard setup... doesn't have to be pretty, doesn't have to have an interesting name... it just has to work. All of the options in all of the utilities would be much more accessible and understandable if they were in ONE standalone application. Creative used to do this in the past, but they're trying too hard to join the "microsoft" bandwagon of making everything pretty and sooo easy and sooo stable that they don't need to give you any options to fix anything because their products are soooo perfect that you'd never have to fix them.
It's already confusing dealing with ONE utility to have to deal with half a dozen more without knowing what the difference is between them. I know you're just trying to make things "simpler for everyone" but you're doing exactly the opposite. I actually make MONEY thanks to you... because nobody "normal" is capable of installing any of these components. Not even a webcam. Plugging stuff is the easy part. Understanding the darn documentationless utilities is what breaks the will of the people and make them hire a technician. Most of these people in the forum are computer savvy, and I'm the one everyone I know comes to for PC answers (except one friend who bails me out when I'm stuck). AND WE are unable to understand this... what's left for the teenagers whose parents buy them the stuff... that's your biggest customer base... neither the kid, nor the parents have a CLUE about fixing a computer issue, NOR THE WILL to do it... these people don't even know where to ask for help and forget about the support phone number. With all the "easy to use" applications, they're worse off than not having them.
Thanks for reading... I've spent so long trying to fix this that I needed to unload. Don't take me wrong, I love creative products... I never buy another brand for multimedia equipment... except for my super cool belkin mouse and a few sony electronics... but my mp3 player, webcam, speakers, headphones, optical dri'ves, and soundcards have always been creative... This the only time i've been so frustrated with your products and I'm sure it's a simple checkbox that needs to be ticked or unticked somewhere.
One of those software plugins that mess the sound with effects that shouldn't even exist is disabling that front channel. I really doubt that the speaker system or the sound card are defecti've in any way. I'm Please help.