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Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 PRO Sound Card

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piam

piam

Joined
Mar 23, 2011
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Motherboard
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO
CPU
I7 6700K
Graphics
GTX Evga 750TI SC
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro

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Build 1
MAXIMUS VII IMPACT |  i7 4770K |  Radeon Other
Build 2
GA-Z97N-WiFi |  i5 5675C |  HD 6200
This was the guide i followed and didn't work. Don't know if im doing something wrong but sure i can't be as it's not that difficult.

Can anyone help further or help me step by step to make sure i am doing it right?
 
Identical Looking, but 2 Different Cards

There is a reason why your X-Fi 5.1 PRO USB sound card isn't working the same as the one in the Apple support thread: it's not the same card!

They look identical but you have the NEW version of the card and the one with the instructions is the OLD card. You can confirm this by looking at both screenshots (yours is listed with PRO in the card name, the other one is not).

The - partial - good news is that you're not doing anything wrong. The rest of the news is that there might not be drivers/ kexts/ software to let you install it OSX: Creative Labs is annoying when it comes to this soft of thing.
 
matt2_m said:
There is a reason why your X-Fi 5.1 PRO USB sound card isn't working the same as the one in the Apple support thread: it's not the same card!

They look identical but you have the NEW version of the card and the one with the instructions is the OLD card. You can confirm this by looking at both screenshots (yours is listed with PRO in the card name, the other one is not).

The - partial - good news is that you're not doing anything wrong. The rest of the news is that there might not be drivers/ kexts/ software to let you install it OSX: Creative Labs is annoying when it comes to this soft of thing.
Click to expand...

Hmm, but if it's showing the name of the sound card surely the kexts for it are installed?

I brought this because I saw all USB sound card's work then when i found the guide thought great!
 
I was able to answer the question of why the same procedure that worked for the person in the thread was not working for you. As such these other responses are rather speculative.

I have problems getting multi-channel audio with 10.8 to work, in 10.6.8 it worked easily for me. Mind you I've only spent a day playing around and installing ML. Trying with a new board in the next week or so (the GB H77N mini-itx) so I might have some better luck. (I too have the X-Fi USB old version so I'll report back later with how it worked for me in a week or two - I haven't used in OSX yet)

>>...surely the kexts for it are installed?

You'd think so... but I'm not sure if the hardware inside is the same as it originally was (same chip, etc). Just because a 'working' kext makes the name pop up doesn't mean it will do the advanced features. Working and fully functional are 2 very different things.

Out of curiosity, what are you using to test the discrete channels? If you have a DVD with the THX logo it - 90% of the time - has a series of tests that lets you play one channel of audio at a time (quite handy).

If your audio format is PCM (uncompressed aka lossless) you can ONLY EVER get L/R coming out of an optical (or RCA/coax) SPDIF. If you're using a compressed format like Dolby or DTS then the SPDIF will be able to spit out 6 discrete channels (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,Rs aka 5.1), but I'm not sure if there's any advanced settings that have to be changed around with inside OSX or if there are specific ones to ML.

I assume you're not using the optical and instead using the combo L/R RCA jacks and remaining 2 headphone jacks on the X-FI (for those of you reading that last sentence and wondering: it's the way the product is set-up) for the 5.1. The only other thing I can think of right now is to test it under 10.6 or 10.7: not a lot of help really.

>>I brought this because I saw all USB sound card's work then when i found the guide thought great!
Yeah, but when saying a sound card works most people just mean L/R. As for Creative Labs, I gave up on them years ago after wasting too much time with their products. There was a time when on-board sound was sub-standard, but that's a while ago - especially since digital connections came out.

The real selling point of an external sound card now is you don't have to worry about stray voltage (giving hisses or other interference) on the mother board affecting when you're recording something via the analog ports.
 
matt2_m said:
I was able to answer the question of why the same procedure that worked for the person in the thread was not working for you. As such these other responses are rather speculative.

I have problems getting multi-channel audio with 10.8 to work, in 10.6.8 it worked easily for me. Mind you I've only spent a day playing around and installing ML. Trying with a new board in the next week or so (the GB H77N mini-itx) so I might have some better luck. (I too have the X-Fi USB old version so I'll report back later with how it worked for me in a week or two - I haven't used in OSX yet)

>>...surely the kexts for it are installed?

You'd think so... but I'm not sure if the hardware inside is the same as it originally was (same chip, etc). Just because a 'working' kext makes the name pop up doesn't mean it will do the advanced features. Working and fully functional are 2 very different things.

Out of curiosity, what are you using to test the discrete channels? If you have a DVD with the THX logo it - 90% of the time - has a series of tests that lets you play one channel of audio at a time (quite handy).

If your audio format is PCM (uncompressed aka lossless) you can ONLY EVER get L/R coming out of an optical (or RCA/coax) SPDIF. If you're using a compressed format like Dolby or DTS then the SPDIF will be able to spit out 6 discrete channels (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,Rs aka 5.1), but I'm not sure if there's any advanced settings that have to be changed around with inside OSX or if there are specific ones to ML.

I assume you're not using the optical and instead using the combo L/R RCA jacks and remaining 2 headphone jacks on the X-FI (for those of you reading that last sentence and wondering: it's the way the product is set-up) for the 5.1. The only other thing I can think of right now is to test it under 10.6 or 10.7: not a lot of help really.

>>I brought this because I saw all USB sound card's work then when i found the guide thought great!
Yeah, but when saying a sound card works most people just mean L/R. As for Creative Labs, I gave up on them years ago after wasting too much time with their products. There was a time when on-board sound was sub-standard, but that's a while ago - especially since digital connections came out.

The real selling point of an external sound card now is you don't have to worry about stray voltage (giving hisses or other interference) on the mother board affecting when you're recording something via the analog ports.
Click to expand...


BTW, i am using 2:1 speakers not 5:1.

I have the harmon kardon soundsticks VIII

And yes thats how they are connected
 
I am confused now becuase we're talking about a couple different things. I assumed the problem you were having was you were just getting L/R and not 5.1 and that would have been a kext/ hardware issue. (And whether we were talking about 5.1 either through the Optical (SPDIF) port or the RCA+Headphone jacks.)

Are you getting any sound out of the X-Fi at all? Specifically out of the 2 RCA ports - NOT the actual headphone jack - (judging from the functioning 10.7 thread: the way the X-Fi handles sound is different than in Windows: in OSX ONLY the 2 RCA and the Black and Orange headphone jacks were working for that person).

From your screenshot it looks like the RCA ports are functioning (again not the actual headphone jack: the 2 RCAs) and you'll need the 2 RCA to female headphone jack adapter to hear sound out of it.

Please confirm this part so I can figure what exactly is going on. And while we're at it try another set of headphones - in addition to the speakers - so we can rule another variable out.
 
No, no sound at all.

Here is a picture of whats connected.
 

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matt2_m said:
I am confused now becuase we're talking about a couple different things. I assumed the problem you were having was you were just getting L/R and not 5.1 and that would have been a kext/ hardware issue. (And whether we were talking about 5.1 either through the Optical (SPDIF) port or the RCA+Headphone jacks.)

Are you getting any sound out of the X-Fi at all? Specifically out of the 2 RCA ports - NOT the actual headphone jack - (judging from the functioning 10.7 thread: the way the X-Fi handles sound is different than in Windows: in OSX ONLY the 2 RCA and the Black and Orange headphone jacks were working for that person).

From your screenshot it looks like the RCA ports are functioning (again not the actual headphone jack: the 2 RCAs) and you'll need the 2 RCA to female headphone jack adapter to hear sound out of it.

Please confirm this part so I can figure what exactly is going on. And while we're at it try another set of headphones - in addition to the speakers - so we can rule another variable out.
Click to expand...

Sound via the headphone slot on the side. No sound via the cable shown in the picture.

Sorry i don't know the names of them wires
 
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