volume controls sound blaster omni surround grayed out

Question

volume controls sound blaster omni surround grayed out

I have run through this problem with a tech at Creative, and we could not fix this. All volume controls but master volume are grayed out on the Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 external sound card. I am at my wit's end with trying to get surround sound on my iMac. This will be the 5th external sound card I have to send back because it does not work with Mac, even though they claim they do.

It seems this must be a problem associated with the OS (High Sierra).

Any ideas? I have already installed, reinstalled, checked for new Creative firmware (it had the latest), and checked every forum for hints.

iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.13

Posted on Mar 4, 2019 4:07 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

JohnDStarrett Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 5, 2019 1:32 PM in response to JohnDStarrett

I got word back from Creative: They say that the individual volumes cannot be adjusted. What a shame. Thank you all for your replies, and if you know of any external sound cards that *can* do surround sound and have adjustable volume controls, please post suggestions.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,711 points

Mar 5, 2019 10:02 AM in response to JohnDStarrett

Yeah, shame that Apple doesn't allow choice. Have you tried disabling SIP?

Follow these steps to disable SIP:

Restart your Mac.
Before OS X starts up, hold down Command-R and keep it held down until you see an Apple icon and a progress bar. Release. This boots you into Recovery.
From the Utilities menu, select Terminal.
At the prompt type exactly the following and then press Return: csrutil disable
Terminal should display a message that SIP was disabled.
From the  menu, select Restart.

https://www.macworld.com/article/2986118/how-to-modify-system-integrity-protection-in-el-capitan.html

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Answer 3

Mar 5, 2019 8:59 AM in response to BDAqua

That's where I am looking to see what controls are available. I have tried every bit sized integer, every Hertz setting, every number of channels. In every one, only master volume works. I have now upgraded to Mojave, and that does not fix it either.

One possible problem is that there is no way to allow software from "Anywhere" to install anymore. Even using the terminal to disable that security measure using sudo spctl -- master-disable does not work, so the Mac may be disabling something every install.

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