Question about Winamp 2.xx, Winamp 5.xx....why does it play my MP3's fine through my 5.1 system and not my WMAs?

[NFS4]

OK, Windows Media Player 9 will play all of my music files (MP3 and WMA) files through my 5.1 system (Altec 251). I hear music through ALL of my speakers.

But whenever I try to play a WMA file through any variant of Winamp, I only hear sound through the two front speakers. However, f I play a MP3 in Winamp, I hear sound through all speakers.

I've tried both Lite and Full versions of Winamp and monkeyed around with the output/DirectSound settings to no avail 🙁

 

[ClueLis]

It's a microsoft screwup. Go here for more info and a way to fix it.

On a side note, it doesn't actually give you surround sound, it only splits it arbitrarily since the original source is only stereo.

 

[Glitchny]

yeah exactly as he said above, the music is encoded in stereo so Winamp is actually playing the song how it is supposed to and WMP is just trying to emulate 5.1 by splitting the sound as it thinks it should be split