[LAD] (Off-topic) Audigy 4 and Surround

[JohnLM]

Hi!
This might be a complete offtopic here, but there hardly is another 
place to ask, where there are serious audio-tech savvy people. :)

So I have Creative Audigy 4 sound card on WinXP x64. It's been a pain to 
set-up a working 5.1 surround system. In fact I've never done it.
Has anyone got it right?
I had no luck with Linux' ALSA either.

I currently run it with the bloody Creative's CMSS, which is pretty good 
for stereo music recordings and most movies.
I knew my 5.1 wasn't right, but until I tried ambisonics I was quite 
oblivious to the fact.

So the actual problem.
There is no real surround. The back speakers actually put out the same 
thing as front, with, what appears to be, some phase offset. This is 
most likely CMSS doing, but If I disable CMSS I get ouput only of two 
front speakers. Regardless of CMSS setting anything that is recorded as 
in "directly behind" doesn't play at all.

With Linux and ALSA, there is a bit different problem. ALSA appears to 
cap the maximum amplitude below capability of the sound card, so I get 
"clipping artefacts" at *much* lower volumes than WinXP.
So neither ALSA driver, nor music players were satisfactory to me and I 
never went though pains to get surround on it.

I had not tried my luck with OSS4 yet. If it was up to me I'd use 
stripped down OSS4, which would provide direct access to 6-channel 
output. On top of it I'd put JACK and then route what I want, where I 
want. This is no small task however, and I'm not even sure if it can be 
done at all.

I ask of you to share any experiences and ideas you have with Audigy, on 
any of these platforms.

Thanks in advance!

-- John