Okay, I will preface that Witcher 2 is the only game I have this problem in. Everything else both new and old have zero issue.

What is happening is two-fold:

1. The rear ambient sounds are being split between the two speakers and not mixed
2. Voices come out of only the front speakers. If someone in front of me is talking and I turn away from them, I no longer hear them talking until I turn to face them again.

What should happen:

1. Everything should be blended
2. Voices should pan to speakers based on position of speaking person -- i.e. they behind me, voices should come out of rear speakers

With that said, how do I fix this? I've tried everything from setting speakers to 5.1 (doesn't fix) to turning off DTS processing. Yes, my speakers are set to 4.1 in Windows. No, I don't want to play with headphones, I want to play in 4.1 audio. This was never an issue in Witcher 1.

I am using a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty card.
Specs:
Intel 3770k
16 Gigs RAM
670 GTX
Windows 7 64-bit

Please help as I'd love to play this game. Thanks.

I was doing a Google search and stumbled on this thread because I have this exact same problem. I've found no solution yet. (But I suppose we shouldn't be rude and turn away from people when they're talking to us, eh? NPCs have feelings too.)

I'm using my on board audiocard to have 4.1. No other game--or anything for that matter--has the same issues as The Witcher 2.

Specs:

Win 7 64
GTX 560 Ti
8 gigs
i7 2600
Sabertooth P67 Motherboard (Front speakers plugged into the green jack, rear into the black jack.)