I upgraded my system from a Asus M2N-E (Soundmax AD1988 codec) motherboard to MSI X58 Pro-E (Realtek ALC889 codec).

The problem is that I feel the sound worst than before. I feel lack of bass and treble. With AD1988 the sound was more "vivid", there was more bass and treble. With ALC889 it is "flat".

The only advantage I noticed on ALC889 is the possibility of mixing multiple sounds at hardware level, what was impossible on AD1988.

So, what are your opinion?

Ps: I used on both the analog output with a Edifier E3100 2.1 speaker system.

Ps2: could be a problem with a bad quality DAC of the Realtek ALC889?