[Alsa-user] sound effects, backgrounds, but no voices with Audigy 2zs

[Tom W. <to...@op...>]

Hello,

I surrender!  I admit that I have no clue as to what it is that I am 
doing and need help!  I've gone thru three sound cards in the past week 
and cannot get surround sound (5.1) to work correctly.   I've tried the 
SPDIF output of the MSI m'board, a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital, and 
now an Audigy 2 zs.  All exhibit the same problem, I pop in a DVD, run 
mplayer and all I get is sound effects and background sounds, but no 
voices.  People talk and nothing comes out the speakers.  :(

I've tried:  MPlayer 1.0pre4-3.3.2 & MPlayer 0.91-3.3.1 with alsa-1.0.2 
& alsa-1.0.5 & alsa-0.96.   Two channel operation is great, I hear all 
the sound, 6 channel lacks human speech.

I've tried so many things over the past several days to make it work 
that I won't list them (mplayer commands, etc.).  Like I said, I really 
don't know what I am doing here.

Is there some way, some sound file that I can play (perhaps with aplay) 
that can verify that alsa is setup properly.  Or, should I even use 
alsa, is OSS the answer to getting 5.1 surround working via SPDIF to my 
Yamaha HTR-5460 Home Theater unit?

TIA,

TomW

-- 
Tom Walsh - WN3L - Embedded Systems Consultant
http://openhardware.net, http://cyberiansoftware.com
"Windows? No thanks, I have work to do..."
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