AD700 Gaming Help (USB Sound Cards)

Yeah I found they really shined with dolby headphones.  I've never once used them without dolby headphone.  Their soundstage gets the biggest bump in size out of any headphone I've tried with dolby headphone.  Some headphones like M50 or some skullcandy buds don't get any bump in soundstage.

I can't say for sure, as I've no experience with any of those computer soundcards.  I've only used the astro mixamp.  I know I like the AD700s better with dolby headphone, but I can't comment on the quality of that little usb card.  Worst case scenario, you find a place that accepts returns and return the thing if you don't like it.

A cheap way to add Dolby to your computer is the Asus Xonar DG, There is a $10 mail in rebate this month and you can also mail order it with free shipping and no sales tax.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjc013 

Hi I recently got the ad700 and I am disappointed in the positional audio but you have to consider a couple things.

 

I don't use a dedicated sound card.  The reason for this is I am a competitive gamer.  I want my sound at home to be the same as at LAN tournaments so I use USB sound cards.  I don't want a great sound card at home which is not in the LAN computers leading to me second guessing sounds.

 

I have been using the creative x-fi go pro and the quality to me is terrible, so I went back to onboard(p55a-ud4p). I decided to do some research and saw the ad700 perform better with Dolby headphone support.  I looked around and saw the Xonar U3 is a usb card that supports Dolby Headphone as well.

 

My question is will the Xonar U3 USB card finally help my ad700 with positional audio? (It just sounds out of place and to loud for everything, even playing on volume .4 in CS)  Right now a 7$ pair of headphones I had laying around is giving me better directional sound off onboard then my ad700 which makes me :(

Heya,

Astro Mixamp.

Very best,

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjc013 

I am looking for a usb solution since I am mainly playing for big lan tournaments where onboard sound is used, but I have read the Asus Xonar U3 is like a portable DG to a degree

You say they use on-board sound at these tournaments.

Are you aloud to use the Asus Xonar U3 at these Lan tournaments?
 

The main issue I have with that is that you probably wouldn't want to be using an AD700 for a lan anyways-- not a big or busy one.  

Given the Dolby Headphone demos I've heard on YouTube with my AD700s, you're definitely missing out on a competitive edge without it. (I can't test it in games directly because I use proper X-Fi cards with CMSS-3D Headphone, though I've thought about buying an external Dolby Headphone DSP/DAC for console usage, and perhaps feeding it a Dolby Digital Live signal from one of those X-Fi cards for comparison's sake.)

It's a shame that the X-Fi Go! Pro doesn't seem to work out; I wouldn't expect an EMU20k1/20k2 in such a small package, but I was somewhat hoping that the claims of EAX 5.0 and CMSS-3D Headphone weren't just blatant lies, even if software-driven. It lacks the necessary outputs for surround sound, but in newer games with software-processed audio through an API like XAudio2, the game will map its speaker settings according to what Windows is set for. If Windows only lets you select stereo in its sound control panel (NOT Creative's), stereo is all CMSS-3D Headphone has to work with. (As cheap as those things are, though, I wouldn't expect much in terms of basic sound quality.)

There's also a software solution called My Ears that apparently installs a virtual sound output device, applies a HRTF surround filter, and can be set to output to any hardware audio device you like. The trick here is that instead of using a generic HRTF like CMSS-3D Headphone and Dolby Headphone would, it allows for customization, much like Sensaura's Virtual Ear might have offered (before they got bought out by Creative, anyway). Too bad the videos on their site don't do a great job of demonstrating their tech, but they do at least offer a 14-day trial. The only thing I'm worried about is that they say they'll store your profiles for a full year...but what happens when that year is up? Do you have to pay again? I'm certainly not that fond of subscription-based models.