Reddit mentions of Creative SB1040 Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-E Sound Card

I am not familiar with your specific motherboard. However, I have relied upon expansion sound cards (e.g., PCI and PCIe) for my builds exclusively for over 15 years even when my motherboard has decent audio processing thereon. While not a big fan of Creative and the bloatware and its performance (on and off) over the years, I have found the X-FI chipset to be a really decent performer. Like this one. I suspect there are cheaper units and really more expensive units, so do your own research. The Creative bloatware currently comes with a product called Creative Volume Panel or Audio Control Panel or something like that. This allows you to shift between different modes of operation, like gaming, entertainment, and "audio creation" to enable differing settings for each usage. The software is not good, but it does help to create a seemingly superior menu of options for audio enthusiasts.

There are likely other products to look into, also. But, I suspect an expansion card may give you the control you need. Also, look into the variation of gain in your audio source(s)? This could explain why the music audio is comparatively lower than other tasks. Lastly, the audio "mixer" in WIN 10 (presuming that is your OS) may alow you to tweak and/or individually specify audio levels for each process.

All this being said, try and mess with your current settings to see if there is a way to control the levels for each process and/or separate the audio processing to a dedicated processor. Obviously, make sure your drivers are up to date. It may help. *shrug*

Care to educate then? I don't see where I went wrong.

My motherboard (Gigabyte X79-UP4) has more than adequate onboard audio coupled with my headset.

If I NEEDED a soundcard, I could easily pick up a PCI-E one for $40