Distorted Bass with SoundBlasterX AE-5 Plus

Support Sound
1

Hi to everyone
I’ve bought an audio card. One Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus
At first boot on linux the audio worked fine, there was no problem, but after booted into windows 11 and played with Creative Command (the settings of audio card) are started the problems.
On Manjaro (last update) the bass are distorted, as if they were being overly pushed and they results bad.
I’ve no EasyEffect active, and i’ve tried to reset the pipewire settings letting run the default setting, but rest the problem.
Same problem is in headphones as in speakers, at seem way.

So, where is the problem?
Can someone help me please?

There is some method to reset driver audio of card, in case is that the problem?

Thank You to anyone who wants to help me

inxi -A

Audio:
  Device-1: Creative Labs CA0132 Sound Core3D [Sound Blaster Recon3D /
    Z-Series BlasterX AE-5 Plus] driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.60-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.83 status: active

aplay -l

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Creative [HDA Creative], device 0: CA0132 Analog [CA0132 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Creative [HDA Creative], device 1: CA0132 Digital [CA0132 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [LG ULTRAGEAR]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 2 [HDMI 2]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 9: HDMI 3 [HDMI 3]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

dmesg | grep snd

[    1.231953] ata9.00: Features: Trust Dev-Sleep NCQ-sndrcv
[    3.560515] snd_hda_intel 0000:05:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    3.560578] snd_hda_intel 0000:05:00.0: Disabling MSI
[    3.560580] snd_hda_intel 0000:05:00.0: Force to non-snoop mode
[    3.561010] snd_hda_intel 0000:0a:00.1: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    3.564362] snd_hda_intel 0000:0a:00.1: Disabling MSI
[    3.564369] snd_hda_intel 0000:0a:00.1: Handle vga_switcheroo audio client
[    3.613868] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1: autoconfig for Sound BlasterX AE-5: line_outs=3 (0xb/0xf/0x10/0x0/0x0) type:line
[    3.613871] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    speaker_outs=0 (0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.613872] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    hp_outs=1 (0x11/0x0/0x0/0x0/0x0)
[    3.613873] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    mono: mono_out=0x0
[    3.613874] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    dig-out=0xc/0xd
[    3.613874] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    inputs:
[    3.613875] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:      Mic=0x12
[    3.613875] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:      Line=0x13
[    3.613876] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1:    dig-in=0xe
[    4.270545] snd_hda_codec_ca0132 hdaudioC0D1: ca0132 DSP downloaded and running
[    8.241981] snd_hda_intel 0000:05:00.0: Too many BDL entries: buffer=1572864, period=49152
[   12.358542] snd_hda_intel 0000:05:00.0: Too many BDL entries: buffer=1572864, period=49152

Hope this may help

2

Forget it.
I played around with the settings in alsamixer and everything was fine. Thanks anyway

3

Windows software has probably changed card settings in ALSA
I suggest check ALSA mixer playback settings

alsamixer --card=Creative --view-playback

That should show the same internal controls as Windows software
(software sound servers like PipeWIre cannot access these settings)

For distorted bass on this card it is most likely to be the FX: X-Bass turned on or set too high

Once alasamixer settings are corrected, run this command to save settings state

sudo alsactl store

and if alsamixer settings become misconfigured in future, use this command

sudo alsactl restore
4

Thanks for your suggestions
I’ll do as you said