Business Audio Driver - LS Pro
There appears to be some confusion about the playing of stereo and mono
wave files on the LS Pro when external speakers are used.
If the only sound driver installed is the 'Business Audio Driver', mono
sounds will only be audible through one channel.
The reason for this is the sound hardware. The Yamaha chip, which
creates the sound on the LS Pro, detects the number of channels the playing sound uses. If
the sound uses both channels, stereo sound will be heard, and if it only uses one channel,
only mono sound is heard.
When using the 'PC Speaker Driver' which was issued by Microsoft with
beta versions of Windows 3.1, both stereo and mono sounds are reproduced through both
speakers. The driver effectively copies the contents of the sound channel so as to produce
the stereo effect. It should be noted that this driver makes use of the standard PC Beep
Electronics.
This is also the case if both the 'PC Speaker Driver' and the 'Business
Audio Driver' are installed (the LS Pro has both Sound Hardware and standard PC Beep
Electronics), due to the way in which the relevant driver is chosen by Windows. When a
sound is to be played, Windows looks through the list of sound capable drivers, and
interrogates each one as to its ability to play mono or stereo sounds. If the first driver
it finds is the 'PC Speaker Driver' and the sound file is mono, this driver is selected
and therefore sound will be re-produced in both speakers. This driver does not have the
ability to play stereo sounds and therefore the 'Business Audio Driver' will be chosen.
There have also been some incidents of 'white noise' being played from
sound files recorded on the LS Pro. After some investigation, this is only believed to be
heard when the sound is recorded in 16-bit mode, and is at the moment being further
investigated by our supplier.
Apricot expect to offer a resolution to this problem in the near future.
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