Problems with rear speakers

M

marsonist

Registered
I recently purchased a Creative Labs soundblaster 24bit USB external soundcard. Straight from the box with no tweaking the front two speakers work perfectly. I have used the MIDI setup tool in an effort to get the rear speakers to work. I have reached a point in the MIDI setup tool where I see all for speakers, and clicking on each one activates a short static "tone" for the appropriate speaker.

As soon as I close and then reopen the MIDI setup the options have all reverted back to Stereo from Quadraphonic. Again, while in the tool I can get all four speakers to function, but I can't make the options save, nor can I get a "real" application to use them...

Any thoughts
 
The fact that the preferences are not sticking suggests a permissions issue either on the preference file itself, or that the software that handles the surround sound setup is trying to write to a write protected location (either it installs Support files only into the Admin account, or - Worst case scenario - really badly writen apps may try to store prefs inside their Application Bundle (!) ).

I'm assuming you installed any required software for this hardware device as an administrator. See if you can find a preference file for this devices' settings. First pace to look would be prefs folder for the account you are logged into when trying to set up the surround sound. If there are none, try setting it up as an admin, and you may find it writes a preference file or support file somewhere else (I'd check Application Support in your Admin account Library folder, or Main Library folder) that is only accessible by an admin (If this is the case, it is bad programming on the part of the software authors). If these settings apply for all users now (and you are happy with that), perhaps leave it as is. If not, try setting the permissions to those files to be writable by all, which will allow all users to change the settings. If this doesn't work, try copying those applications support files to the appropriate locations in your current user's home folder, change the permissions to that of tht user, and try again. If the settings stick, you've got it licked.
 
No specific drivers were installed for the device, because as Satcomer mentioned, it's not specifically built for Mac. If it wasn't for the fact that I can get the apple 'Audio MIDI Setup' program to send audio over each of the 4 speakers individually I would be willing to give up. It seems that both of the audio ports can be enabled by the system it shouldn't be much of a stretch to get this thing to work.

I imagine that I'm just missing a simple step somewhere.

As for the FireWave, it sure looks nice, but as far as I can tell from the Griffin website it's only available for pre-order
 
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