Upgrade from Xonar DG -> Titanium HD?

You likely will, but whether that difference justifies the extra money spent is another matter. It may take even better headphones to truly appreciate the difference.

Do you still play anything that uses EAX version 3, 4, or 5? Only X-Fi cards can properly handle those; the rest just emulate them.

Then there's the matter of CMSS-3D Headphone vs. Dolby Headphone. I won't say which is better or worse without having tried both extensively for myself, but there have been some heated debates on that topic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG 

You likely will, but whether that difference justifies the extra money spent is another matter. It may take even better headphones to truly appreciate the difference.

 

Do you still play anything that uses EAX version 3, 4, or 5? Only X-Fi cards can properly handle those; the rest just emulate them.

 

Then there's the matter of CMSS-3D Headphone vs. Dolby Headphone. I won't say which is better or worse without having tried both extensively for myself, but there have been some heated debates on that topic.

It mostly depends on the person, one might like DH and hate CMSS3D and the other might like CMSS3D and hate DH. besides those who hate both.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by pac-man8 

Hi and thanks for the reply.

 

I'm not familiar with EAX / CMSS but the games I'm playing at the moment are Battlefield 3 / Modern Warfare 3 online and Skyrim.

 

At present I use Dolby Headphone but I don't think I've tried CMSS before?

None of those games use EAX. Their predecessors, do, though...Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2/2142 come to mind (though 1942 only uses EAX 2 and sounds fine on anything with an OpenAL wrapper), as does Morrowind (again, only EAX 2).

CMSS-3D Headphone is basically Creative's answer to Dolby Headphone. You won't get the latter out of an X-Fi card unless you output Dolby Digital Live to something that does have it, like an Astro Mixamp, and at that point you've basically bypassed all of the sound card's analog circuitry, leaving it to act solely as a DSP.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by genclaymore 

It mostly depends on the person, one might like DH and hate CMSS3D and the other might like CMSS3D and hate DH. besides those who hate both.

As I've noticed countless times on several forums...it's likely because they both use generic/average HRTFs while everyone has a unique HRTF. On top of that, their means of turning surround into binaural isn't the same.

About the only surround-to-binaural DSP that I know pleases everyone who's tried it is the Smyth Realiser, but most people aren't going to spend $3,000 on such a device AND set up an appointment at a nice theater to get the necessary recording to use it properly.

I would use either CMSS3D headphone or Dolby headphone Mode 1 as I like both. Its mode 2 in DH that I dont like since it adds too much effects to the sound.  I do wonder how that Smyth Realiser does,But I don't have a money tree so i cant pull 3k from it to try it out.