Do you use CMSS-3d or Dolby headphone for gaming? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG 

 

I thought the real reason you sold both was that you found the kX Surrounder plugin on your Audigy2 with kX drivers to offer all the positional benefits without the hit to sound quality...but then you started having issues with that card, so you went back to Realtek.

kX Audio driver's surrounder plugin wasn't quite as good as CMSS3D in terms of positioning but I'd say it fit right between DH & CMSS3D and yea it didn't have any impact on sound quality whatsoever though. However I've moved on from the Audigy 2 ZS due to how I've noticed that the Realtek HD onboard chip has even better sound quality these days (probably due to the poor hardware 48kHz resampling on an Audigy 2 ZS). The Audigy 2 ZS card didn't have proper support in Windows 7 with those drivers, for example lacking speaker config... so had to rely on that plugin to get good positional sound. The difference between using 5.1 speakers in windows vs surrounder plugin is so small that I didn't see any point sticking to the Audigy 2 ZS card anymore even if I highly miss its VERY nice EQ. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

As some of you may know by now, I'm a huge Dolby Headphone fanboy.
Stereo may as well be mono with how utterly inferior it is compared to DH.
Again, I'm a console gamer, and don't know how well/bad DH works on PCs.

Just fine if you know what you're doing, I personally go DDL > SU-DH1 > X-Head > AD700/K601

I haven't bothered with the native Xonar solution myself.

Looks like I'm the only one that voted for THX TruStudio Pro. :)

I recently went from a X-Fi Fatality Professional (the one with the x-ram) to a Titanium HD. It actually drives my cans now. (Senn PC 350's)

I've used CMSS 3D for years, and THX TruStudio Pro is better in every way imho. I disagree with the fellow who referred to TSP as the "bathroom" effect. It gives the audio much needed spaciousness. I can actually pinpoint the distances of sounds now. 

Anywho, that's the beauty/downfall of audio, it's very subjective.

Slight correction to a previous post. THX TruStudio Pro is also present on a whole new batch of onboard audio chips found on desktop and laptop computers. Having said that, disabling it was the first thing I did to keep the authentic X-Fi hardware working as it should.

While games might benefit, in terms of slightly improved positional accuracy, from surround virtualization techs like CMSS-3D and DH, I absolutely can't stand the artificial coating sound gets, making for an unpleasant listening experience. And such techs are only really required, IMHO, for crippled audio renderers that can't do accurate positional cues on their own.