Horrible Sound With Latest Realtek Driver

I've looked almost everywhere and I couldn't find my exact problem. Well, technically I did but there wasn't a solution anywhere, so I decided to go ahead and ask myself.

Now, I installed Windows 7 (32 bit) on my computer the other day, and I've been driver hunting since then. Looking for video card drivers, printer drivers, it's a real nightmare. Though I can say I've pretty much managed with everything, except with this.

I downloaded the latest Realtek HD audio driver for Windows 7 twice, from different sources. I also downloaded a bunch of codecs (made for Windows 7 as well) but what really bothers me is that the sound quality is horrifying.

I used to have XP on my system until last week with the appropriate Realtek audio driver and the sound was awesome. The equalizers available really did the trick.

Now, however, the sound is so freaking bad, even Winamp's equalizer can't make my music sound as good as it did. The treble is raspy, there's hardly any bass. I've tried all the available settings in the Realtek Control Center (or whatever it's called) to no avail. All the additional equalizing and adjusting of the environment make it sound even worse.