[SOLVED] 7.1 Headset seen in Configure Speaker as Stereo

[diana.veruzi]

Just bought a pair of Redragon Talos 7.1 headset.
They were working fine and to enhance the sound I installed Equalizer APO and it's PeaceUI. Configured it there and made them sound AWESOME. After I went on to talk through Discord with my friend.
We were watching YouTube and it annoyed me that everytime he spoke the video's volume went down so I went to Control Panel -> Sound to look for the option that reduces you volume when communications are detected.
I didn't remember exactly where to look for it and went to Sound -> Playback -> Properties instead of Sound -> Communications. From there i went to Enhancements and noticed some things you can apply like Bass Boost, Virtual Surround and Loundness Equalization and checked them to see what they do.
After that I couldn't hear my friend speak through Discord and restarted the PC after unchecking the enhancements above. PC opened back up and I launched Peace (Equalizer) where I noticed it was different (fewer speakers). Then i checked in Sound-> Playback -> Configure Speaker that the only option available was Stereo. (Discord could be heard after restarting)
I tried restarting the pc, uninstalling the driver, doing a windows recovery, checking those
enhancement settings again (again could't hear discord) but idk what else I can do. Any idea what the problem is?

 

[Frag Maniac]

As far as I can tell from reading it's product description, that is not a true 7.1 headset, but rather virtual 7.1. It's kind of obvious via the fact that it has only one speaker driver per side. The other two seem to be just for reverberation rather than actual audio frequencies.

The settings you were first adjusting in the product's app were likely for virtual EQ and phase timings (it gets complicated). Basically phase timings are how virtual sound setups simulate different audio positions.

Ever since Vista and especially W10, Windows has gotten more finicky with what types of sound formats it plays well with, but it's possible when you went into Windows and adjusted things there (bad idea if it was already sounding good), it may have corrupted the driver for the device, which you no doubt needed to use it's GUI and settings.

I would try completely uninstalling then reinstalling the software for the device, and reboot in between. First check Device Manager to see if it still shows as installed with no warning flags, then check it again after uninstalling to make sure it's removed, then again after reinstalling to make sure it's installed with no flags, rebooting each time.