Hi,
I have recently taken delivery of my new desktop system and while I am generally happy with the performance, I am quite disappointed with the sound card. I specified a SB X-Fi Extreme Audio as I was looking for something a little better than the on board Realtek chip. The actual sound quality, for music in particular, is quite good but functionally it is pretty thin and has far fewer features than the SB Audigy 2 I had on my last machine.
The lack of MIDI ports and on board synth I can live with (I should have found out about these beforehand rather than assume), but one feature that I really need help with is the recording from a microphone. The volume from the microphone input is quite frankly appallingly low and unusable in any application. I have updated the drivers and tried all the settings, made it the default recording device, boosted the volume by 20db etc. but all to no avail. I have also tried different microphones (both of which I know work on other PCs) and plugged the mikes into both the front and rear jacks. None of this makes any difference. Moreover, it is possible to get a decent level by connecting the microphone to the mic on the Realtek ports at the rear of the PC, but this is very inconvenient and missing the point somewhat.
Has anybody else had this problem (having Googled it, it seems to have been quite common a couple of years back), and if so can anyone offer any solutions?
Many thanks
Ben
I have recently taken delivery of my new desktop system and while I am generally happy with the performance, I am quite disappointed with the sound card. I specified a SB X-Fi Extreme Audio as I was looking for something a little better than the on board Realtek chip. The actual sound quality, for music in particular, is quite good but functionally it is pretty thin and has far fewer features than the SB Audigy 2 I had on my last machine.
The lack of MIDI ports and on board synth I can live with (I should have found out about these beforehand rather than assume), but one feature that I really need help with is the recording from a microphone. The volume from the microphone input is quite frankly appallingly low and unusable in any application. I have updated the drivers and tried all the settings, made it the default recording device, boosted the volume by 20db etc. but all to no avail. I have also tried different microphones (both of which I know work on other PCs) and plugged the mikes into both the front and rear jacks. None of this makes any difference. Moreover, it is possible to get a decent level by connecting the microphone to the mic on the Realtek ports at the rear of the PC, but this is very inconvenient and missing the point somewhat.
Has anybody else had this problem (having Googled it, it seems to have been quite common a couple of years back), and if so can anyone offer any solutions?
Many thanks
Ben