disappointed with MAXIMUS VI IMPACT sound card...

[lolwatpear]

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how this can be used for 600 ohm headphones, when mine is far less than that. I have the volume on maxed out and it's still not loud enough at all. I've checked the realtek manager and see nothing to change any ohm settings or anything.

I have the xonar dg and was expecting similar performance. That thing gets loud and I only paid around $20 for it. I really wanted an all in one solution here.

[BreakPoint]

dragosmax wrote:
7161 is not available for Win 7 x64. Only for Win 8.1

The Station Drivers Website states that it's for Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1.
See for yourself: http://www.station-drivers.com/index.php/8-news/22-realtek-audio-drivers

[BreakPoint]

Update: I tried the 7121 on my Win 7 64-bit, and I think it sounds like absolute garbage. I then installed the 7161, and It sounds absolutely amazing for onboard audio.

[mMmOishi]

Noticed something interesting today. I tried uninstalling Sonic Radar since it came bundled with the 7161 driver and I never use it. However, after uninstalling it, the sound was absolutely terrible--no bass or mid frequencies. Sounded like a high pass filter that was choppy. I then uninstalled everything and reinstalled the driver again and sound was back to normal. Is there something Sonic Radar has that messes up the sound if I get rid of it?

[EliteA1]

Just saying I've uninstalled and installed every driver version and the 7121 linked in this thread worked great for me. I've been for several months dealing with quite low audio regardless of how many drivers I tried. I noticed with every driver newer than 7121 the green audio bar in the volume mixer would only go about 1/4 up despite having the volume at 100%. Since using the 7121 drivers that green bar now goes all the way to the top and my audio is much louder which sounds fantastic.

The amplify problem isn't really resolved as I can't change between performance and extreme. HD audio has no amplify option shown, but sounds the exact same as having AC97 selected. Overall the amp is actually working with these drivers and the audio sounds amazing now.

mMmOishi wrote:
Noticed something interesting today. I tried uninstalling Sonic Radar since it came bundled with the 7161 driver and I never use it. However, after uninstalling it, the sound was absolutely terrible--no bass or mid frequencies. Sounded like a high pass filter that was choppy. I then uninstalled everything and reinstalled the driver again and sound was back to normal. Is there something Sonic Radar has that messes up the sound if I get rid of it?

I can personally confirm I've had this exact issue. Uninstalled sonic radar made my audio flat and horrible even with a good equalizer.

[alien345]

Perhaps it will improve with usage like amps and CD players?

[Le_Flame]

I used to have the asus realtek red software enabled, the one you can mess around with the settings.

After installing the 7218 it is gone... Does anyone know how can i bring it back? Or it really isn't worth it?

[Hat1324]

I've tried every version and for some ungodly reason, I don't have the headphone virtualization checkbox anywhere. I dont have the amplification options either. WHat the hell?

[Beasty]

The amp option is only available when you plug your headphones into front panel audio and make your Audio control panel manager settings to headphones from the drop down menu. Anyway I too cannot make it work , as I am trying to choose different amp option, nothing changes, even the settings do not change or sometimes change but after I go to the other screen and open the tab, the settings are back to what they are. Also changing from 44100 to 96000 khz makes squeeky sound that can not be stopped in any other way than replugging your heapdhones... Ideas? I am on 8.1 Pro btw.

[Hat1324]

Not sure if I should necro this thread, but considering that the drivers are still broken as **** I would like to offer my full-fledged solution for sound quality AND positional audio.

STEP 1: Get rid of your drivers and install 7121. Not sure if any other version works.
STEP 2: Buy Creative Lab's Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3.
STEP 3: Plug your headphones into front audio and turn on 5.1 (7.1 and rear audio are messed up).
STEP 4: Configure X-Fi MB3; Under "Advanced Settings" set to "Headphones" and under the drop-down arrow set your playback device.
STEP 5: Turn on SBX Pro in MB3 and fiddle with the settings.

That's it. You can do without Creative MB3 but I was really bugged by the tiny soundstage and the really confusing interface. I really wish ASUS got its crap together before releasing Z97 boards though 😞

[MaddBomber83]

Hat1324 wrote:
Not sure if I should necro this thread, but considering that the drivers are still broken as **** I would like to offer my full-fledged solution for sound quality AND positional audio.

STEP 1: Get rid of your drivers and install 7121. Not sure if any other version works.
STEP 2: Buy Creative Lab's Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3.
STEP 3: Plug your headphones into front audio and turn on 5.1 (7.1 and rear audio are messed up).

Hey, thank you for the suggestion. I've not read through the entire thread but I followed your solution and it is working great. I guess I have two fundamental questions:
- Why / how to test 7121 drivers? I can not really tell the difference in sound output between these, the windows auto update (7404), or the March Update (7450). Is there a specific scenario that you can tell the difference?
- The same question for 5.1 vs 7.1 mode.

My current configuration:
- SupremeFX with 5.1 Speaker, the R/L slider set to compensate for my hearing loss.
- SB X-Fi with full Surround and the EQ set to personal preference.

Original Problem:
- So here I question the 2 primary things you suggest changing... My original issue is related to loudness and surround quality experienced from moving to this sound card / motherboard from the Sound Blaster ZxR series.
- This card can, but it is hard to get it even on Extreme, loud enough to handle a 3:8 L/R sound ratio. Games like Dragon Age would be barely loud enough on 100%.
- In addition, the LFE was spread out on both channels at the same volume rather than split.

Both those issues are resolved using the configuration above.


Headphones: Denon AHD2000
Frequency Response 5 - 45000 Hz
Sensitivity 106 dB/mW
Impedance 25 Ohm