Virtual Surround in Headphones
Jun 19, 2016 at 5:57 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 4
aassashish18

aassashish18

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Hello people. I am kind of disappointed with virtual surround in my headphone. I tried Razer surround but couldn't find it any better. After many consultations, suggestions and thoughts I decided to buy a Xonar U3 external sound card for my closed back wired/wireless stereo headphones, Sony XB950BT. Using the Xonar, sound quality difference seems almost negligible to me. But Dolby Headphone feature of the sound card didn't impress me either. It sounds echoey and just that. I already get directional cues in first person video games with my headphone's wireless stereo playback. I totally like the way this headphone sounds wirelessly. Reviewers say that for a closed back headphone it has quite great sound stage.
 
What I expected from DH is the experience of sound as if it was coming from many directions in an open field. Many people say it feels as if explosions in game seem like happening behind them in the house. As if sound is coming from behind their heads even while listening to music. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a chance for an experience like that yet. My queries are:
1. Is that really true what people say about surround?
2. What is wrong with my setup?
3. What to do?
4. Do I really need DH?
5. Or can anyone tell me about their virtual surround experiences with their combinations of DH + headphones that are able to do surround correctly?
6. Should I finally get actual 'virtual surround' headsets?
 
Thank you for the read and please respond.
 
Jun 19, 2016 at 11:37 AM Post #2 of 4
aassashish18 said:
  Hello people. I am kind of disappointed with virtual surround in my headphone. I tried Razer surround but couldn't find it any better. After many consultations, suggestions and thoughts I decided to buy a Xonar U3 external sound card for my closed back wired/wireless stereo headphones, Sony XB950BT. Using the Xonar, sound quality difference seems almost negligible to me. But Dolby Headphone feature of the sound card didn't impress me either. It sounds echoey and just that. I already get directional cues in first person video games with my headphone's wireless stereo playback. I totally like the way this headphone sounds wirelessly. Reviewers say that for a closed back headphone it has quite great sound stage.
 
What I expected from DH is the experience of sound as if it was coming from many directions in an open field. Many people say it feels as if explosions in game seem like happening behind them in the house. As if sound is coming from behind their heads even while listening to music. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a chance for an experience like that yet. My queries are:
1. Is that really true what people say about surround?
2. What is wrong with my setup?
3. What to do?
4. Do I really need DH?
5. Or can anyone tell me about their virtual surround experiences with their combinations of DH + headphones that are able to do surround correctly?
6. Should I finally get actual 'virtual surround' headsets?
 
Thank you for the read and please respond.
Click to expand...

 
I dislike DH for the same reason: the reverberation they add is just too much, especially for games. As far as how good the actual spatialization sounds to you, it kind of depends on how well your ears match up with the "average" ears assumed for DH. I generally find the cues decent for sounds from behind (but not directly behind), but frontal sounds never really sound in-front of you (this is a common problem for non-personalized virtualization systems). Headphones interact in all this, but I haven't found switching between cans to make much difference in improving the situation with DH, so I'm skeptical that a dedicated DH headset would make much difference. A different technology (DTS H:X or SBX Pro Studio) might be worth looking into. The best game surround I've had is with OpenAL games on Linux, as the engine lets you load in custom HRTF filters and transforms the audio directly from the game objects, rather than first going to 5.1 or 7.1 and then back to the virtualization.
 
Jun 20, 2016 at 3:30 PM Post #4 of 4
aassashish18 said:
  Thank you for your reply.
 
I was thinking if headphone like Audio Technica AD700 alone can defeat Dolby Headphone because reviewers say the headphone has MASSIVE sound stage?
Click to expand...

 
I think great lateralization (ability to to pinpoint L/R) will beat so-so virtualization of front/back that reduces stereo imaging, in terms of utility in a competitive environment. In games you have visual cues to help disambiguate front/back, so often if you can't "see" a sound you already know it's behind and thus knowing L/R is much more important. Now if you had a fully personalized virtualization setup along with an audio engine that supported things like reflections and occlusions, then obviously you might have a leg up on old stereo folks. But in the main, good stereo + being able to see goes a long way.
 
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