I just bought a 5.1 speaker system and a Sound Blaster 24 bit Live soundcard. I installed and set it up but can't seem to get it right. The sound diagnostics works fine and I can hear sound come out of every speaker on the tests but when I play MP3s, only the subwoofer and the front speakers have sound. The center and rears don't.

Is that just because MP3s aren't made for surround sound? Or can I do something to make sound come out of all speakers?

 

you can make the other speakers play music, but they will just copy the front two speakers. you can set it up in the utilities that came with the sound card or check your player for options

 

Not sure how to force it to duplicate at the rear and center. The card is set to 5.1. I tried it at every other setting but no sound come to the other speakers. But it's connected right since the diagnostics will put sounds to it when asked.

Is there any way to create 5 channel output with average mp3s?

 

I dunno if you can go through the EAX settings and set up some fake surround. I think that without some hardware to do something like pro-logic, you'll only get stereo since that's all that MP3s can do.
You can pass the output of the SB out to a receiver and then out to the speakers. I do this with my sound card (not Creative) using optical out which passes PCM to the receiver (2 channels) and the receiver does the pro-logic thing and MP3s sound amazing.

 

The EAX settings worked! I made it double stereo so all signals are sent to each speaker 2 times and made it a "theater" sound setting. Sweet.