Problem with center speaker?

[Nebuchadnazzar]

With 5.1 speakers my center speaker dosn't seem to be doing anything. When i ran the SB live test thing it worked fine, but when i play music (Winamp) or play ut2003 i don't hear any sounds from it. does the music have be in Dolby digital or something?
My speakers' plugs are black to black, green to green, yellow to digital out (incase i plugged them in wrong)

I am using 5.1 speakers (altec lansing) and i have a sound blaster live 5.1 sound card

[CrashOveride]

Check the options for the soundcard, sometimes you ahve to tell it to make an artifical center channel or somthing similar to that, but I don't know for sure since I don't have your sound card.

[bluestreakLB]

The center channel isnt always going to be used. I dont know what type of settings you have on your system but on mine for instance (z680s) i can have it on or off depending on the setting, install a good DVD program and watch a movie to see if it works, or play a surround sound game...in either case make sure you have it turned on.

In movie programs you can set it to 5.1 sound, in games it'll be called anything from "3d sound" to "multiple sound" or perhaps even "5.1 sound" (only seen that in one game so far)

Either way, you cant expect it to always be on, it depends on the program being used.

[Nebuchadnazzar]

Thanks guys, i still can't get it to work, but I guess i just don't have games that support it. Unfortunately i don't have a DVD player.

[stan03]

what speakers/ sound card? i got my Z 680s and Audigy 2 to get all 5 speakers playing sound with mp3s

[Maximouse]

You have to enable the CMSS feature.

See this thread for info on what to do to get it to work:

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146969&highlight=playcenter+and+cmss

Al

[shutoutkeeper3]

I bet your sub isn't working either...
Originally posted by Nebuchadnazzar
are black to black, green to green, yellow to digital out (incase i plugged them in wrong)



There's your problem...

The yellow cable plug you are thinking of is the sub/center cable and that plugs into the orangish plug, NOT digital out.


Digital out gives you all 6 channels form one cable.

[Nebuchadnazzar]

YEEEAAAAHHHHH it sounds SOOO nice now
i enabled the CMSS thing, but the center speaker only works if the yellow plug is in digital out, not the orange socket (in the manual it says orange is Mic out).
thanks guys. btw they are versatile 251 altec lansing speakers, and SB live! 5.1 card