Audio question... stereo programs sounding odd

[madpoet]

Ok, I recorded the last 4 Boomtown episodes the other night (excellent show, makes me sad it got canned when I see some of the other drivel on TV). I use all the defaults for Audio, and I have an Audigy2 outputting via SPDIF to my receiver. Audigy is set to 48khz digital only. What I'm getting is some kind of weird stereo effect where the center channel stuff is getting spread across all 3 front speakers with a slight delay to each. Ambient sound is fine, it's only the dialouge. It sounds like it is in an echo chamber.

I freely admit I am not an audio guy . I tend to just hook it up and leave it if it works. This doesn't! So... I need to figure out what I am doing wrong here. Is there a way to correct the sound over the digital link, or do I need to enable (and hook up) the analog outs on my soundcard? I hate to do that because it means I will have to switch back and forth a lot. If there is an easy solution for this, I'd love to have it.

Happy New Year!

[gplasky]

Don't use the Audigy but you shouldn't be having these issues over SPDIF. I would look in Control Panel or Audigy utilities and check out your options. Make sure it's not doing any special environmental sound or whatever they call it. Make sure any specialites like EAX or others aren't enabled. I thought there might be some mention on the AVS Forums on some things you have to do to make this right. Hope this helps.

Gerry

[madpoet]

Ok... I've played the mpeg file on a laptop using the Sage client, on a different computer with Windows Media player, etc;... it sounds exactly the same on every single one of them. So... something screwy happened when the audio recorded. This is the only program I've ever had a problem like this with. I'm just curious what might have happened.