Asus Strix Soar - Sonic Studio not working in Win 10

Soldato
Joined
3 Jul 2008
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Location
London
I have a strange sound card driver / software problem with my new rig.

I recently installed an Asus Strix Soar sound card into my Windows 10 Pro 64-bit system. For a day or two everything worked correctly and I was able to adjust all the sound settings via the Sonic Studio software that installs with the driver.

But then for no obvious reason Sonic Studio stopped working (nothing I'm aware of caused a conflict). Whilst the sound card still plays audio, it is not possible to process or shape this audio in any way via Sonic Studio. None of the sliders, equalizers, presets or effects in Sonic Studio work.

Device Manager does not report any problems and says the card is working correctly. Indeed, the card works fine in all games and sound apps, it's just Sonic Studio and it's effects which do nothing.

I have tried fully uninstalling the drivers and Sonic Studio and reinstalling. I have tried the 1.0.9 drivers and the 1.1.2 drivers from the Asus website. I have tried driver sweepers etc. No difference.

Motherboard is Asus Z170 Pro Gaming and I've tried with the onboard sound disabled and enabled. No difference either way.

All Asus support could suggest was driver uninstalls / reinstalls and BIOS resets etc. Beyond that they couldn't help.

I have downloaded an Open Source equalizer called Equalizer APO and a GUI for it called Peace. This is able to control the Strix Soar's sound output just fine but lacks some of the effects of Sonic Studio (most notably the surround sound). NOTE: the problems started BEFORE I installed Equalizer APO and it makes no difference to the problem whether this is installed or uninstalled.

I have also tried the Strix Soar in my old Windows 7 PC and everything works fine there, the card and Sonic Studio both work perfectly. So it's something peculiar to my Windows 10 rig.

So, I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem or can offer any advice on what might be causing the problem / conflict?
 
Associate
Joined
20 Jul 2016
Posts
4
Hi,

I have a strange sound card driver / software problem with my new rig.

I recently installed an Asus Strix Soar sound card into my Windows 10 Pro 64-bit system. For a day or two everything worked correctly and I was able to adjust all the sound settings via the Sonic Studio software that installs with the driver.

But then for no obvious reason Sonic Studio stopped working (nothing I'm aware of caused a conflict). Whilst the sound card still plays audio, it is not possible to process or shape this audio in any way via Sonic Studio. None of the sliders, equalizers, presets or effects in Sonic Studio work.

Device Manager does not report any problems and says the card is working correctly. Indeed, the card works fine in all games and sound apps, it's just Sonic Studio and it's effects which do nothing.

I have tried fully uninstalling the drivers and Sonic Studio and reinstalling. I have tried the 1.0.9 drivers and the 1.1.2 drivers from the Asus website. I have tried driver sweepers etc. No difference.

Motherboard is Asus Z170 Pro Gaming and I've tried with the onboard sound disabled and enabled. No difference either way.

All Asus support could suggest was driver uninstalls / reinstalls and BIOS resets etc. Beyond that they couldn't help.

I have downloaded an Open Source equalizer called Equalizer APO and a GUI for it called Peace. This is able to control the Strix Soar's sound output just fine but lacks some of the effects of Sonic Studio (most notably the surround sound). NOTE: the problems started BEFORE I installed Equalizer APO and it makes no difference to the problem whether this is installed or uninstalled.

I have also tried the Strix Soar in my old Windows 7 PC and everything works fine there, the card and Sonic Studio both work perfectly. So it's something peculiar to my Windows 10 rig.

So, I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem or can offer any advice on what might be causing the problem / conflict?
 
Associate
Joined
20 Jul 2016
Posts
4
Hi,
I have exactly the same problem with sound card Asus Strix Soar.
The sound card worked perfectly with a older PC with Windows 8. I have now a new PC Windows 10 and the sound card works but Sonic Studio is empty. Worse, when I open Sonic Studio, this is deactivates all sound devices (headphones, speakers...) I have the message "audio service disabled" in the icon audio of Windows. I have to use the automatic problem resolution of Windows to enable sound devices. In Sonic Studio i can only change between Headphone or speaker, nothing else.
Someone have a solution ?
Thanks
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2009
Posts
11,175
Windows 10 really is rubbish for sound cards it would seem. I've seen so many people having sound issues with 10, it's ridiculous. Either Microsoft have really screwed up, or Asus and co, just got a whole lot worse when writing software/drivers for 10.

Solution: get rid of Windows 10, or dump the sound card in favour of an external DAC that doesn't need terrible drivers in order to function. Onboard audio is good enough for 5.1 speakers and stereo/2.1 speakers, headphones will work great from a DAC. No fancy EQ nonsense or Dolby Headphone, etc. I'd rather go without all that stuff than put up with a half gimped audio device.
 
Associate
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20 Jul 2016
Posts
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I know but I have a very special headphone Sennheiser Game Zero needs more power from sound card. Cern update if you find a solution.
Thanks
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Behind you... Naked!
Asus make the worst drivers ever for their soundcards, always have, always will. Shame as they make the best soundcards.

It was not that long ago when people were saying creative are c..p get Asus.

Quite honestly I have gone back to Creative and so far, I have not had any issues with Windows 10. Its only Asus that do it, or rather dont do it for me.

My Media PC is Win8.1 With WMC and so I really do need to plop my Stris Junk into that to give it a long term trial non-Win10 style and see what happens, but with this PC, it stutters randomly, and crashes things when I change from headphone to speaker or speaker top headphone.
 
Soldato
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I think it's just the Strix not all Asus cards, my STX is quite happily running under Win 10 Anniversary edition with the most recent official drivers (still from 2015)
 
Associate
Joined
20 Jul 2016
Posts
4
I have a strange sound card driver / software problem with my new rig.

I recently installed an Asus Strix Soar sound card into my Windows 10 Pro 64-bit system. For a day or two everything worked correctly and I was able to adjust all the sound settings via the Sonic Studio software that installs with the driver.

But then for no obvious reason Sonic Studio stopped working (nothing I'm aware of caused a conflict). Whilst the sound card still plays audio, it is not possible to process or shape this audio in any way via Sonic Studio. None of the sliders, equalizers, presets or effects in Sonic Studio work.

Device Manager does not report any problems and says the card is working correctly. Indeed, the card works fine in all games and sound apps, it's just Sonic Studio and it's effects which do nothing.

I have tried fully uninstalling the drivers and Sonic Studio and reinstalling. I have tried the 1.0.9 drivers and the 1.1.2 drivers from the Asus website. I have tried driver sweepers etc. No difference.

Motherboard is Asus Z170 Pro Gaming and I've tried with the onboard sound disabled and enabled. No difference either way.

All Asus support could suggest was driver uninstalls / reinstalls and BIOS resets etc. Beyond that they couldn't help.

I have downloaded an Open Source equalizer called Equalizer APO and a GUI for it called Peace. This is able to control the Strix Soar's sound output just fine but lacks some of the effects of Sonic Studio (most notably the surround sound). NOTE: the problems started BEFORE I installed Equalizer APO and it makes no difference to the problem whether this is installed or uninstalled.

I have also tried the Strix Soar in my old Windows 7 PC and everything works fine there, the card and Sonic Studio both work perfectly. So it's something peculiar to my Windows 10 rig.

So, I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem or can offer any advice on what might be causing the problem / conflict?

Finnally, after the big update of windows 10 anniversary, Sonic Studio suddenly seems to work fine.
Thanks
 
Associate
Joined
19 Sep 2017
Posts
2
Hi guys i have a problem i have the strix soar but when i play music in chrome it shows that the auido is only coming out of the front speakers even though i have it set up to use 7.1
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2008
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11,616
Location
Finland
Hi guys i have a problem i have the strix soar but when i play music in chrome it shows that the auido is only coming out of the front speakers even though i have it set up to use 7.1
Besides having all speaker channels active you need to enable some upmixing or "surround" (which is fake) to get stereo/2.0 content play from all speaker.
So look for some surround etc setting.
 
Associate
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Well i have headphones but they have true 7.1 surround with 5 speakers in each ear cup and after a while talking with asus (sound card) and razer (headphones) they determined that it wasnt working because the card wasn't compatible with windows 10
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2008
Posts
11,616
Location
Finland
Well i have headphones but they have true 7.1 surround with 5 speakers in each ear cup and after a while talking with asus (sound card) and razer (headphones) they determined that it wasnt working because the card wasn't compatible with windows 10
So much for Asus having good support...
They ditched barely five years old Phoebus line and if latest card made for Win10 isn't fully compatible that isn't good sign.
Let's hope they maintain better standards in motherboards...

Though maybe there's still chance for other cause for it:
Chrome "technically" giving out signal for all speaker channels, but only silence in other than L/R channels, which causes failure to trigger upmixing.
Have you tried other browsers to see if anything changes?


That's still fake surround.
5.1/7.1 sound (along with 2.0) is designed for speakers with sound from individual speakers traveling to both ears...
With signal received by them having timing/phase differences and frequency response changes depending on direction allowing brain to decode sound source direction.
With headphones that can never happen.
Not to mention that cramming more even cheaper drivers into headphones isn't going to help with sound quality.

Only true surround for headphones is binaural sound.
And even that would require measured personal HRTF (ear/head shape and size related) to work for everyone.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Jan 2010
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2,966
Location
London
I hate Asus but saying they have ditched it when several driver releases for W10 have already come out is just stupid.

Plus I don't recall anyone ever saying asus have good support.... They are as good as creative (useless) I've never had asus drivers put me in a bsod loop which creative did on more than one occasion!

My mate had some issues like you describe, I'll try to get some info and post an update as soon as I find out.
 
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