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DAC suitable for movies on laptop ?

post #1 of 4
1/7/11 at 8:45am
Thread Starter 

Hi I am thinking of buying the nuforce UDAC 2 for my laptop to watch movies using headphones.

Is it worthwhile getting the DAC just for movies ? or is it mainly more for music ?

 

Thanks

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post #2 of 4
1/7/11 at 9:11am

It will sound great with movies too. You also have more power through it, which, in turn, will drive your headphones better if they are quite demanding. I'd imagine you'd get better spacial imaging with it too which helps for those action movies.

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post #3 of 4
1/7/11 at 10:49am

Can your laptop output surround sound? If so, I think a better choice would be to get a surround sound decoder that mixes Dolby Headphone to your headphones.

 

For movies, I think the immersion of a surround soundstage is much more key to enjoyment of the mix as originally intended by the director than a powerful 2-channel downmix in stereo. Surround sound will more closely replicate a theatrical experience when watching films encoded with multi-channel audio. I think stereo DACs are best stereo sources such 2-channel music.

 

I use an Astro Mixamp that takes 5.1 channel audio from my computer via toslink optical and then mixes that signal to Dolby Headphone (virtual surround) for output to my headphones. The illusion of surround is very accurate to me and makes my movie watching a lot more enjoyable. There are other Dolby Headphone processors out there like Turtle Beach's DSS.

 

 

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post #4 of 4
1/7/11 at 11:20am
Thread Starter 

thanks for your replies. A lot of the things I watch do not have surround sound like tv shows and some movies. I would like to have surround sound one day. but I would prefer it with speakers then surround sound headphones.

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