Chipp

Looking for better sound on your Audigy 2 or Live! sound card? Well, there is a method I stumbled upod that gives a much lower noise floor and increased deatil.

How: On most Audigy 2 cards and all Sound Blaster Live!'s, the front audio anologue outputs use the AC97 chip for a DAC and line-level amplifier. However, the Rear audio outputs use a I2S chip, which has a much lower THD, higher SNR, and better chanel seperation.

So, it seems like it would be better to use the rear outputs on your card. How do you go about getting the front and rear signal switched?

Go to KX Project. The KX projec t is a 3rd party drivers project for Creative Lab's and E-Emu sound cards. The driver is freely available, and high quality. Uninstall your Creative drivers, and then download and install the KX drivers. Now, open up KX Mixer. Click the Speaker Setup icon.



Now, go to the bottom of the popup and choose the preset "4.0, Rear=Front". Close that window. On the main screen, make sure that the "Swap Font and Rear" button on checked.



The last step is to go to your sound card, and plug the cable for your front (only in 2.1) speakers into the jack for your rear output. The outputs should be switched now, so the front audio data is processed by the higher quality rear chip.

This little mod is great on 2.0 or 2.1 speakers, but if you have a more advanced speaker setup, I reccomend just using creatives's drivers, or leaving the KX drivers at stock 5.1. Please note that the X-Fi cards use I2S across the board, and this mod will not effect them.

Good luck, and let me know how it work for you.

-Chipp

Just1ce

Thanks Alot!

phatcars89

dude that is awesomwe! thanks!

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Chipp

Thanks for the feedback guys!

claymanhb

Sweet faq. I may just install my old SB Live 24bit and give it a go.

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gonX

I'll try this whenever i get home. +Rep if it works :P

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Nevaziah

Very good my friend, i will test it once I have been a bit confortable wtih my soundblaster 2sz, i just got it today...

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JohnRogers

Will this also let EAX work for games, etc?

gonX

EAX is not supported by those drivers, so no. I did it and it works wonders! Except that I don't have EAX now.

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indignation

Very easy to do and sounds great. I'm now using the rear out. For all you guys who don't know which jack to use, the normal output if you're using regular stereo speakers is GREEN. The one you want to switch to (rear) is BLACK.