Silent Cinema & Dolby Headphone comparisons - Page 3

Thanks, it works!

Sorry for resurrecting an old(ish) thread. I'm interested in this subject, mainly for gaming purposes. Hence the question: between the two technology which is the most successful at providing positional cues? Which provides the best "rear speakers" impression?

No one?

I haven't tried SC, but Dolby Headphone provide great 'rear speaker" location. I use them with some beyer DT880's.

Finally got an Auzen X-Fi HT after the longest of delayed releases.... great news tho! If you are using an HDMI output it has the ability to output analogue speaker audio to your AV receiver rather than a strict optical signal. This means that should you wish to take advantage of the CMSS-3D headphone and other X-Fi benefits, and then have those reprocessed by the AV receiver, everything stays in tact. I was therefore able to make a direct comparison to the Silent Cinema mode using the helicopter fly around test on the X-fi control panel.

Observations:

CMSS-3D - Incredible sense of space. Elevation could be heard and a much wider soundstage and a very distinct rear vs front location cues.

Silent Cinema (default Dolby Digital surround mode) - Left to front to right cues are fine. Soundstage is not as wide and in fact is much more narrow than CMSS-3D. Right to rear to left however is a lot harder to distinguish from right to front to left than with the X-Fi processing. Elevation is almost non existant.

Current thoughts are that competitive PC gamers should pick up an Auzen HT HD over a dedicated receiver, but the rest of its features ie HD Bitstreaming are made redundant without one.

For console gamers silent cinema and pro logic II are still great surround methods for headphone cues, but as always, a PC with the right components has yet again been given a distinct advantage over the consoles.

if anybody wishes me to test a specific Silent Cinema DSP against the X-fi send me a pm and I'll post here with results. (only reason I haven't already done so is the DSPs tend to create an unwanted reverb effect).

Completely agree with the CMSS-3D observations....

For anyone using Dolby Headphone or Silent Cinema with an X-Fi:

Once you set the X-Fi to 5.1 (or anything else over quadraphonic) Elevation Filter and MacroFX are disabled. Hence you lose several positional cues, compared to stereo mode with CMSS-3D.

I never found the rear channels or sense of distance from CMSS-3D headphone to be as realistic as Dolby Headphone.

My solution was to run the X-Fi in 4 channel mode, with Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect to a Dolby Headphone receiver (the SU-DH1). You basically get Dolby Headphone with MacroFX and Elevation cues intact. I much prefer this to CMSS-3D headphone. Missing a centre channel doesn't seem to hurt the experience at all.

It should work for Silent Cinema too. Additionally - for games that use Elevation Filter and MacroFX, I would recommend using 4.0 speakers (or 4.1 with Bass redirect) rather than 5.1 or 7.1.

I'd like it if some more people would give my 5.1 headphone setup (in sig) a listen, I haven't turned it off since discovering it... very wide soundstage, detailed positioning... perhaps a software variant of the Smyth SVS Realiser when setup correctly.

I thought only Yamaha receivers have Silent Cinema? Is there soundcards licensing this as well?

As for CMSS3D yes it´s the best but it distort the audio like crazy to achieve that level.

I haven´t yet compared dolby headphone with Silent Cinema though but will do it when I get time.

I haven't tried dolby headphone yet but I can use the software version through powerdvd. Only problem with that is I need a solid dvd or blu ray movie to make a good comparison in =P any suggestions of a specific scene in a movie where the rear channels go nuts?

You can make any stereophonic recording multichannel, thus enjoying your collection in surround sound. Alternatively there are a few 5.1 recordings that just require a DTS coder which can be setup in foobar along with Dolby Headphones. As far as movie suggestions go check out Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World ~ the ship assault scene is brilliant to listen too.

Black hawk down it´s constant firefights in that movie

two to put on my list then aye? going to test them out as soon as i get them. Method of testing shall be: uncompressed PCM/DTS HDMA over silent cinema, Dolby Headphone, Pro logic II movie over Silent Cinema, and uncompressed PCM/DTS HDMA over CMSS-3D.

Just to say that the Software verson of Dolby Headphone in PowerDVD isn't as good as hardware versions. I've tested it against a Xonar D2 with Dolby Headphone built in and the Xonar wiped the floor with PowerDVD. Comparing software DH to hardware SilentCinema wouldn't be fair.

Some DVDs have a pre-encoded Dolby Headphone soundtrack. Pearl Harbour has it. Shame about the film though. That might be a more suitable test.

SU-DH1 added to the list then? haha I'm totally doing some overkill here but for a fair comparison it just might be worth it. Plus if all goes well I can post a buyer's guide up for anybody wanted surround headphones without sacrificing the use of their top end headphones.