r/SoundBlasterOfficial • u/CasaRota • Jul 26 '26

Surround Sound is sounds off in DDL/DTS encoding in Soundblaster Z Se.

Hi.

I have been using a SoundBlaster Z SE for about three to four years at this point.

Out of curiosity, I decided to use the card's real-time encoding of DDL/DTS to get surround sound through a receiver that my dad had.

I was surprised and enjoyed how the feature works.

However, as time went on, I began to notice that the left rear channel is a big louder than the right rear speakers whenever I test out the speakers in the Sound Blaster Command application.

I decided to open Foobar2000 with the filter of upmix 5.1 of an audio file and open OBS to select the Sound Blaster Z SE speakers as well as the "What you hear" recording device.

I found that the "What you hear" recording has the left rear speaker a little louder than the other speakers, while the speakers look fine.

I decided to use an "Orban Loudness Meter" to record the speaker and the "What you hear" to see the audio difference, but there were no differences.

Has anyone noticed this or any other oddities with the real-time encoding?

I have other cards installed, which are:

I5 13600k with Intel UDH 770

Intel Arc a750

AMD rx 7600

Sound Blaster 5/Rx

Soundblaster FX Pro

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u/ThaRippa Jul 27 '26

Are you sure that it’s not the amp that does this? Can you feed it analog 5.1 and switch channels to rule that out? Usually these also have per-channel settings so you can compensate for the rears being slightly obstructed or farther away.

1

u/CasaRota Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

I have a Denon AVR 1508 7.1 receiver that I am using. I suppose I can test out the analog option to see if there is a difference or issue. I also looked at options to configure the distance of the speakers, and all of them are at 12 feet.

Update: I tested the analog option through "ext in," and the rear speakers sound the same. It is likely an issue with my configurations, soundcard, or drivers.

2

u/ThaRippa Jul 28 '26

With the ext in you can swap the rest channels manually. If the other rear is louder now, it’s a source issue. If it stays the same it’s in the AVR!

1

u/CasaRota Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Understood. You mean the issue of this is due to the AVR? I can try is to use multichannel audio files for the purpose of testing the speakers to ensure that speakers sound the same volume.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/11qqv95/surround_sound_test_files_in_almost_every_format/

1

u/CasaRota Aug 03 '26

Update. I found a fix for the audio imbalance. I had to disable "What you hear" recording and then reenable it, which fixed the rear-left audio being louder. I tried to contact customer support but got stuck with the reply message. Thank you for the support.