Use all 5.1 speakers with 2 channel audio sources

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I would like to upmix 2 channel audio sources such that they use all of my 5.1 speakers. I have a realtek sound card (with updated drivers) and Windows 7.

Here's what i've tried:

  1. Using the "Speaker Fill" option under the speaker properties "Enhancements" tab. This tries to guess what the audio should sound like in a 5.1 environment which results in only parts of the audio being played out of the additional speakers. I could deal with that if it were only the rear speakers but it also impacts the sub too. The 2 channel audio sources have significantly less low-end than true 5.1 sources when using "Speaker Fill".

speaker fill

  1. Using the "Room" environment. This seems to help a bit but it also introduces a slight echo effect/distortion that can be annoying with certain music/sources.

room environment

I'm MusicBee for playing music as it has it's own upmix option that works perfectly. The rear speakers are exact clones of the front speakers and the subwoofer sounds great too. I'd love to be able to have that same quality upmix with other sources such as YouTube.

Are there any other options out there?

Related:

diolemo

Posted 2015-05-24T21:15:41.033

Reputation: 133

Question was closed 2015-05-26T11:49:53.837

Windows 7 does not natively support this, but my Creative Soundcard has this option and I would not be surprised if your realtek card has it too. Can you edit your post and give a full list of options you have? I can then look if such option is present in your case. You might have to use speaker fill in conjucntion with loudness equalization, but there also might be another option. – LPChip – 2015-05-24T21:26:50.833

@LPChip. Loudness equalization doesn't seem to help. The only other option that makes any sense is Bass Management but that isn't helpful either. I suspect that they solution may come in the form of a "virtual sound card". I tried some software called "Virtual Audio Cable" but as far as I doesn't do exactly what I want. Which sound card do you have? – diolemo – 2015-05-25T16:42:12.497

Creative X-Fi Elite Pro, but any X-Fi will have it. I also have the Creative X-Fi 5.1 (USB) one which is very limited, and I was still able to get it to work in there (but it was harder) – LPChip – 2015-05-25T16:54:45.933

No answers