So I just re-connected my the rear speakers of my 5.1 speakers (I had been using as the front left and right in 2.1 for a while now). In 5.1 surround, anything that is BEHIND Geralt (or, more correctly, behind the camera) is much louder than anything in front of the camera.

I googled and found several threads about fixing surround sound issues, but those were related to DTS not functioning and requiring a DirectX hack.

I have my SoundBlasterZ set to DTS and the sound is functioning properly, it's just waaay too quiet in front of the camera and too loud behind.

Does anyone know of a solution or work-around?

The game has no sound configuration, so it's grabbing what it needs from your operating system audio driver settings. Start in control panel, and make sure you have set your SB configuration (Sound >> Playback >> Speakers >> Properties, NOT Configure >> Sound Blaster >> Settings >> Game Mode/EAX, etc),