How to get the best Windows audio experience

This post deals specifically with configuring your Windows audio settings for the best experience.  Generally, most users will simply leave their configuration as default and won't touch a thing.  Whilst this can result in a good enough experience it's not the way to go, especially if you care about sound fidelity.  The idea is to try and get the sound to play exactly as the author intended, whether it's a movie, a game or an mp3.  Many people spend a fortune on good audio equipment, but don't really get their money's worth as they don't use the correct settings.  This post is geared more toward the average user than the audiophile.  People serious about their sound quality should consider using a digital signal with an external amplifier.

To know how to configure your sound settings, you'll need to know what the properties of the source audio is.  Windows does not have the ability to dynamically update your sound card's speaker configuration based on what's currently playing.  That makes sense, as you could have many different audio sources playing at the same time, and Windows won't be able to make the "right" decision as to which audio source should be prioritized.  This is an important thing to understand as it means that you always have to know what's playing to know if you have the right configuration.

Three things that will affect your experience are (in order):

a) Speaker Configuration

b) Software/App Configuration

c) Enhancements (eg. Dolby, Creative X-Fi etc.)

d) Hardware

To get the best experience, you have to find the best configuration for a particular audio source.  Let's start with gaming.

Gaming

To determine the best settings, the first step is to remove all enhancements, whether they're driver enhancements or a specific hardware feature like vibrating headphones for example.  Once you've done that, make sure your games audio configuration is correct.  What you'll need to do is match the games configuration to your speaker configuration.  I'd suggest setting the game to "surround sound" and setting the windows speaker configuration to 5.1.

What's interesting here is that if you have a stereo headset (which most of you probably have), something beautiful happens.  The game will send a 5.1 encoded audio signal to your sound card, and because your speaker configuration is 5.1 your sound card (the driver actually) will automatically determine the virtualization required.  Some sound cards cannot do this as they don't have drivers that can perform the required virtualization.  Usually, if you're able to select a 5.1 speaker configuration, then your sound driver will likely be able to convert the signal automatically.  When gaming, this is the preferred configuration as you're able to hear where sounds are coming from, which for some games, is critical.  Another thing to note is that the implementation for surround sound virtualization is not the same for all sound cards.  Some may perform better than others in this regard.  Also, headphone virtualization is a different technique which "may" suit you better.  How this works is you'd have a stereo speaker configuration with the option to enable "Headphone Virtualization" as an enhancement.  Once you've found the configuration that works best, you can start tweaking the settings with enhancements to tailor your experience eg. Creative X-Fi Crystalizer.

Movies

For movies you should follow the same process as with gaming, but you'd need to watch out for one or two issues.  Firstly, you need to ensure that your output speaker configuration from your media player is correct.  For many players, this is impossible as you won't be given access to certain features.  For this reason, I'd suggest using something like MPC.  I personally use Pot Player.  The best setting is arguably "Same as Input", which will send the audio signal as-is to the audio driver.  What you'd need to look out for is that if you're watching a movie with surround sound, it's possible that the signals that are encoded to specifically target certain speakers.  Here, you could have a signal that's intended for rear surround speakers vs side surround speakers (there is a difference).  You should play with the settings to get the best configuration.  Many sound cards have features like Dolby or DTS and if your speaker configuration supports it, then go ahead and enable it and set your media player to match that configuration.  I personally use Dolby ProLogic II.  Sometimes you'll find that a surround sound movie doesn't actually play correctly (usually voices sound muddled or soft).  When this happens it's an indication that you need to configure your output speaker configure correctly.  Again, once you've found the correct setting, you can then enable specific enhancements available on your sound card.

Music

This doesn't really need any configuration.  Set your windows speaker configuration to "Stereo" and disable any enhancements.  The reason for setting a "Stereo" speaker configuration is that your audio driver may automatically attempt to up-mix your stereo signal to 5.1.  When listening to music, this is undesirable as you want to listen to the music the way the author intended.  Once configured, enable any enhancements that pleases you.

Browser

This one is the most difficult as there's no simple way to determine the audio encoding used when watching streamed content.  Most videos will be stereo, but there could be surround sound videos as well.

One last thing to note is that some sound cards have a headphone amplifier built-in, but is only utilized if you use the HD audio header on your motherboard.  So using the rear/front port can actually make a difference.  If you're still not able to get good sound, then you should consider upgrading your equipment, usually your headset.  Maybe you could borrow a pair from a friend and see if it makes a difference.

Hope this helps.