XPS 8950, rear surround on MPS 5650 speaker not working

Have you read this thread?

You may want to go over your speakers wiring connections and reintroduce the connectors to your new computer.

Start your computer without any speaker connect to it.  Plug in the light green jack to #10 and select surround Front L/R speakers in Waves Maxx popup.  Next, plug in the yellow (mustard) jack to #8 and select Sub/Center speakers in popup.  Lastly, connect black color jack to #2 and select surround Rear L/R speakers.  Open audio app and running test again.

If it doesn't solve the issue, attach some screenshots of your wiring connection from speakers and PC.  Hopefully we can spot the problem better.

I restarted the PC with no speaker connections.  Once the PC came back up after the reboot, I plugged the green cable into port 10.  When the MaxxAudioPro popup appeared, it showed External Speakers Medium.  There is a drop-down, but the options in the drop-down don't show a Surround Front L/R.

Is your audio driver original or had been reinstalled?  Seems like my GUI is older version!  If you go ahead and accept it as external speaker then plug in the next orange jack to orange (top right) to see which option will be offer, hopefully Sub or LFE (low frequency effects).  Finally, try black connector to black jack to see Rear Surround.

If none will happened.  Uninstall audio driver (select to uninstall apps as well), restart your machine and installing this audio driver.  Restart machine one more time to allow Waves to install (by itself).  Reintroduce each speakers cable to your system to see if you can get different result.

If all else fails, use Windows troubleshooter to see it can resolve your audio channels issue.

When you click on select a sound output using the volume in system tray, what types of output available to choose?  Any Realtek audio 5.1? 

I agree with you that MaxxAudioPro mis-configure the channel, it routed all output sound to the light green port, while the (Waves) offer to select the speakers type unavailable, the issue will be remained.

I resolved a similar issue by completely removed Realtek driver and re-installed it.  The input selection was stubbornly stucked on internal speaker and finally fixed.

I have tried a bunch of different variations to what you suggested.  I think the issue is with MaxxAudioPro.   When I bring up the Sound configuration off the Control Panel and select Speakers (Realtek Audio) and press Configure, it shows the 5.1 Surround configuration.  When I hit the test button, I do indeed hear sounds coming out of all of my speakers (including the rear surround speakers).  But when I try to do a Dolby 5.1 test on YouTube, the rear surround sound is directed to the front speakers instead.  When I do a sound test within MaxxAudioPro, no sound comes out of the rear surround speakers at all.

@TipTopEric  - On the Waves Playback screen -at least for Win 10- there's a small slider near top left corner that turns the Equalizer on. If you have it, make sure it's on, and then scroll down to Select Output Device, and make sure it's set correctly. 

And if your version has a "Dimension" screen like mine, there may be a slider on that screen that also has to be turned on.

YRMV because you have a different OS and different version of Waves.

I have tried all the suggestions supplied, including uninstalling and reinstalling the audio driver and the MaxxAudio app.  Still the same result.  If I go to Speaker Setup off the Control Panel and do a test, all the speakers get sound.  But if I try to test 5.1 sound in YouTube (via this site ), the rear surround get routed to the front surround speakers and nothing is routed to the rear surround speakers.  Same result if I do the Sound Test in the MaxxAudio Pro app.   Not sure where to go from here.  I still can't get the MaxxPro app to recognize one set of speakers (which it labels as External) when I plug them in after the reboot (green cable into green port).

Are your speakers being connected in order front L/R into #10, rear L/R into #2 and sub into #8?

It does looks like Waves is seeing things correctly since it says 5.1 in the Playback icon box and says  Surround Speakers as the Output Device. Are there any other potential choices on that Output Device list?

Have you checked for additional settings by clicking the "head" icon in the middle box in Waves control panel?

BTW: Do these speakers require their own driver?

Yes.  And no matter what order I try, one of them always pops up with External.  This latest attempt (after uninstalling the driver/app and re-installing), the External popped up when I plugged in the very first cable (green into port 10).  Same as what happened when I did it to upload pictures on my post back on 01-30-2023 03:28 PM.  (See above).  I cannot get it to recognize them as Surround speakers.  It only brings up the option of External Speakers.  Surround is not in the list.

When I play things back, what is supposed to go to the Rear Surround gets routed to the Front Surround, even though it shows 5.1.

At the stage of plugging speakers in for first time, Waves probably won't offer any option other than external or internal.  So I don't think that's a problem. It does see them as 5.1 when you open the Waves control panel, but just isn't using them.

What version of Waves is installed? 4.0.44.0, A05 is last one Dell lists on the support page.

Won't make you feel better, but you're not the only one with problems using 5.1 with Waves. You may want to search this forum to see if anyone has posted a fix that might also work for you...

Here's what it shows.

@TipTopEric  Glad you got it figured out. When all else fails, try something simple!