Audio/Music output not stereo. 2.41, 2.5, 1.38.3 (2 Viewers)

[Percy]

Not sure if this a a bug/config/settings problem.

I am running a media portal 2.5 server with 2.41 client but it seems I get the same result in the 2.5 client and the most recent Mp1.38.3 client (installed to test).

My setup is an AMD 3400g, 16GB ram, x-fi sound card (outputting 7.1).

My general audio flow is through lav which maps with no mixing, and the x-fi uses CMSS-3D on stereo outputs and turns them in stereo surround (copies left/right to side/rear making a 3/3 stereo). So if a tv channel/video is multi channel is passes through and all stereo gets upmixed, the good thing is this works system wide with browsers, winamp, media player all getting up mixed when stereo too.

So the problem is if I play music in the audio section it only comes from the front 2 speakers and my soundcard doesn't see it as stereo so doesn't upmix, if I play the same files in media player or winamp and its is instantly upmixed as its stereo output of stereo files.

To be clear I don't know what the audio player is outputting but it doesn't appear to be a straight 2.0 signal and it doesn't appear to be going through the lav codecs so I can't see what it is doing.

If anybody has come up against this before or know any configs/setting/codecs which effect this that would be great, failing that its abandon for music and use another music player which isn't the first choice on the wife approval index but if its the only way so be it.

 

[el Filou]

I don't know about MP2 but as you said you tried MP1 too, how is the MP music config ?
MP(1) will only use LAV if you select "Internal DirectShow player" as music output, but then you lose gapless playback.
If you you don't have multichannel music you can choose WASAPI as the output and set the number of speakers to stereo.

I have the same issue on my AVR with 6.0 audio where if I left Windows speaker config to 7.1 it will play stereo content in 7.1 with silent surround channels, preventing my AVR from using upmixing. The workaround I have found is to set Windows sound config to stereo, and use WASAPI Exclusive to play surround content which then sets the output to the exact number of channels being played.