When this new miles sound system came out in AH, the sounds really sounded horrible. Even after the latest patches. I even changed my in game settings to use 5.1 as I have a 5.1 headset that runs off my Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS and it still sounded horrible. Now what I just found out is in windows, my sound card setting was set to 2/2.1 speaker setting. I changed it to 5/5.1 setting to match the in game settings. Now everything sounds great.
My ? is, How comes AH doesn't automatically/overide the window settings like COD or even MSFSX does. This could also be why everyone else is complaining about sound quality within the game. They may have it set to use 5.1 in game but in windows it set to 2.1.
BTW, I have windows XP Pro with the latest audigy 2ZS drivers (2.18.017 dated 4/2010)