I bought SoundblasterX AE-plus + GigaWorks T40 Series II (Both creative Labs) and sound is awful

[dlresponse]

i'm pretty annoyed TBH and expected much better from creative. I bought a combo SoundblasterX AE-plus soundcard and paired it with Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II (Both creative Labs)

When the gigaworks speakers arrived I was pretty astonished to find one single audio lead with green jacks on each end. The soundcard itself has literally FIVE ports on the back of it. So I have found myself swithching the single cable between each port, audio on some tracks seem muffled, twitter playing content is EXTREMELY muffled,. Content in music making programs is hit and miss. It's as if the sound card is expecting you to have a full surround sound speaker system connected.

Has anybody got this setup? how do you get anything working properly?

£230 this lot cost and I can't believe how hard it is to get anything to sound right

 

[EsaT]

By what logic do you expect stereo speaker set to include more than stereo input and work even in mic/line in ports?

Sound card's manual tells what's the left/right channel output jack.
Set Windows sound/speaker configuration to stereo, if it isn't that.
Same for sound card's control software's output configuration.



Also cheaper basic AE-5 without DD Live/DTS Connect would have been fine.
AE-5 Plus is for those needing optical 5.1 output.

 

[hornetstinger]

Read the manual.

 

[Purgatory]

i'm pretty annoyed TBH and expected much better from creative. I bought a combo SoundblasterX AE-plus soundcard and paired it with Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II (Both creative Labs)

When the gigaworks speakers arrived I was pretty astonished to find one single audio lead with green jacks on each end. The soundcard itself has literally FIVE ports on the back of it. So I have found myself swithching the single cable between each port, audio on some tracks seem muffled, twitter playing content is EXTREMELY muffled,. Content in music making programs is hit and miss. It's as if the sound card is expecting you to have a full surround sound speaker system connected.

Has anybody got this setup? how do you get anything working properly?

£230 this lot cost and I can't believe how hard it is to get anything to sound right

You doing something wrong as that combination of speakers and sound card are very good sounding for the money.

Also make sure to set windows and the creative sound settings to stereo if they are on 5.1 or 7.1. Also check the bit rate and frequency they are set at.

If you need more help shout again. But remember that setup should sound very nice .

 

[Rroff]

Some people have had problems with the relays for switching between headphone mode and speakers with that soundcard - you might need to switch it a couple of times between modes and/or reinstall the drivers and make sure you are using the latest drivers and software rather than the bundled software. Other people have had Windows not correctly recognising headphone and/or speaker mode device and causing issues with the sound output.

It is possible the relays are faulty entirely - fairly rare but has been reported.

 

[VonScar]

i'm pretty annoyed TBH and expected much better from creative. I bought a combo SoundblasterX AE-plus soundcard and paired it with Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II (Both creative Labs)

When the gigaworks speakers arrived I was pretty astonished to find one single audio lead with green jacks on each end. The soundcard itself has literally FIVE ports on the back of it. So I have found myself swithching the single cable between each port, audio on some tracks seem muffled, twitter playing content is EXTREMELY muffled,. Content in music making programs is hit and miss. It's as if the sound card is expecting you to have a full surround sound speaker system connected.

Has anybody got this setup? how do you get anything working properly?

£230 this lot cost and I can't believe how hard it is to get anything to sound right

I have the exact same soundcard and speakers. Sounds fine.
I believe the reason why OP has muffled sound is that his output is set to 5.1 rather than stereo. I also suggest he use equaliser/playback to select the output that sounds best to his ears. 5.1 is set by default in the driver, so needs changing.
T40's are stereo and don't require the 5.1 output just the stereo plug. Oh, and there is a headphone jack which you can plus your wired headphones in and switch when needed.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Sounds like PEBCAK...

OP you need to set the soundcard driver to output as 2.0/Stereo (not 5.1) for Front Speaker, and make sure the speaker is connect to the soundcard Front Channel audio port.

If it is muffled despite in the correct port, you probably haven't plugged the jack all the way in...