[DJINFERNO806]

During the water fountain test, i found sbx at 100% to be fine, but not the best..  At 30% im not quite sure why anyone who wants virtual surround would even use that as it has barely any good direction and you might as well use stereo more accurately lol.  The uploader only used the most extremes of SBX surround and in doing so does an injustice by not representing what it is capable of.  Its possible they were intent on being biased from the get go, who knows.
 
100%, while broadening the soundstage the most, it also lessens the accuracy of the soundstage.  I already posted my findings and what I mean by this, I will post it again. But in short, 67% is the all around clear winner in my opinion and the reason why its the default.
 
I posted this here and on overclock.net a few times already,
 
Quote:

"So I did some more analytical testing with the sbx surround slider. I have come to one conclusion and setting to rule them all lol, 67%.

The reason is I find its the best compromise of accuracy and surround immersion.

The higher I go towards 100% the less accurate the sound stage begins to be. Let me try and explain.

So if a sound came from my rear right at lets say coordinates (10,10). At 67% I can hear that its at (10,10) but at 100% I can only tell its in between my rear right and my absolute right, or (5 to 10, 5 to 10).

Another explanation is the channels start to bleed together. Lower than 67% you lose immersion and the channels start to close off and you begin to get a straight stereo effect without any hrtf.

Hope that makes sense.

For me accuracy is more important so that's why I pick this. Also I felt like it muffled or exaggerated sounds at distances when set towards 100%(as has been mentioned by xshollywood as well before) Hard to explain this one but maybe it messes with the volume and eq of some sounds.

67% seems best at emulating a properly calibrated and eq'd 5.1 home theatre(I use mine in comparison). Seems reasonable that creative would use this as default.

As always whatever sounds best to you is the best choice."

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

  Is sbx surround "100%" that bad or is it just me ? 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA

Jesus, this vid almost make me wanna retry a Titanium HD. xD Especially impressive at the incoming airstrike part at 15 min, that sounded very realistic with CMSS3D.

 

[Evshrug]

I just figured out how to make good recordings of gameplay using NVIDIA Shadowplay, I'm going to try and make some demos of my own, at different settings so people can make their own opinions. I have so far been trying the default 67% in order to "burn-in my brain" to the default setting as a baseline, but from my experience with the Recon3D and it's similar THX processing, Personally, I feel that 67% isn't enough and rear cues sound behind me but "inside my head." That's the beauty of adjustable sliders though, everyone's ears are slightly different and we have the option to tune it to taste.

Dunno exactly when I'll have time to set up and edit/upload the demos, but probably soon.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Ya some bad news for you with shadowplay, it won't record the z effects as in surround and such. It will only record the basic stereo or downmixed 5.1 sound(essentially stereo in this case).

I assume it grabs the audio from the windows mixer right before the endpoint in order to improve latency and not take up so many CPU resources. Hence your left without any z enhancements.

It also won't record your mic input either which reinforces my theory.

Sucks really.

 

[Evshrug]

Actually you can have it include mic input. Like I said, I think I just need a little time to sit down with it and mess around.

Possible work-around with What U Hear or even mic input... Mostly I just care about the sound.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Ya considering shadow play doesn't really have options for sound, only an on and off option. I don't think there's much you can do.

Trust me I've tried a bunch of times.

If you make any headway though let us know.

 

[Evshrug]

There are settings... I'll be able to show you. It is entirely possible that it won't record the sound right, but it's worth trying. Would be simplest solution, meanwhile Mad is learning DXToy.

 

[Tony6225]

Looking for a decent soundcard that is under $100, has drivers for Windows 8.1, and works with Foobar2000 WASAPI. Seems like I'm stuck with the Soundblaster Z but it only does 96khz compared to my onboard 192khz sample rate. Will that affect overall SQ? Are there better options? Any help is appreciated.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

Looking for a decent soundcard that is under $100, has drivers for Windows 8.1, and works with Foobar2000 WASAPI. Seems like I'm stuck with the Soundblaster Z but it only does 96khz compared to my onboard 192khz sample rate. Will that affect overall SQ? Are there better options? Any help is appreciated.

Unless you run media that's encoded with a 192 kHz sampling frequency, in highly doubt you'll notice a positive difference. The thing is when you run wasapi exclusive mode in foobar, the frequency you get is what the song is encoded in.

Do you run an upsampling dsp in foobar?

 

[SaLX]

Pretty sure it does the full 192 kHz in stereo direct mode. Not at my desktop PC atm.. can anybody confirm?

 

[DJINFERNO806]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1rXcJuEsy0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUNovoA9w0KnxyDP5bGrOYzg
 
I am curious to see what you guys think of this video.

 

[SaLX]

Whoa! So basically get an ODAC and Hi-Fi Mans/Mad Dogs because the stereo sound quality will negate the effects of any surround DSP's. Pretteh expensive.... and even then, just plain wrong.
 
Maybe one day onboard (itself subject to internal noise) will be better than a soundcard (some of them are very good), but it'll be a cold day in hell that I would want to use the Realtek control panel.
 
Can't say I agree with this in the main, however they do make a couple of good points. Also -- when they said check out the Barbershop vid.. that's already been encoded with binaural sound information.. it's not just plain stereo. That's a fail. Also fail on the shielding - having openings doesn't been they have magically become unshielded. Sigh. 
 
Yeah DJ - just been reading your comments on the YouTube page -completely agree.

 

[DJINFERNO806]

haha ya apparently EMI is basically like sound and air and once you see the openings, it can get in and shielding does nothing!  Also they dont seem to understand there are multiple PCB layers that are made to stop EMI from underneath. smh.

So if I was to cover 90% of my cellphone from Radio signals, it doesnt matter because the 10% opening will allow full unhindered Radio waves to get in like air or in their words "like sound".

To be fair I am still selling my ZXR and going for the Audio GD since i want a universal AMP/DAC for wherever I am.  And then I will use an oem Z for the features.  Only reason I didnt already buy the 02 and ODAC is because it doesnt have optical for console gaming.  But if it did, seeing this video would definitely make me buy the o2 from someone other than Mayflower.

 

[SaLX]

Also got to take issue about "missing bass" because of impedance mismatch - a mismatch would cause bass to become sloppier not disappear into thin air. 
 
yeah DJ.. you are proposing using OEM Z and not!! the Realtek drivers to control an external DAC.

 

[SaLX]

  The X1's and K712's work great with the SBZ. Both headphones are enjoyable for gaming. The X1's have more bass and are great for single-player (in the BF4 beta I would use them whenever I played support and used an LMG...boomy noises as intended!). I prefer the K712's for gaming, however, since I am mostly playing BF4 and COD: Ghosts and they help minimize distracting noises.  Granted I still get knifed in the back in Ghosts a lot because I'm trying to focus on the map, radar, what's around me and miss the guy sneaking up behind me.

I've kept both because I prefer one over the other for certain music....and the X1 works way much better with my Astro Mixamp.

Skip .. hope you don't mind me asking, but why did you prefer the Mixamp over the SBZ with the X1? Or are you saying that, as the AKG needs a lot of power, it simply doesn't work well out of the Mixamp (kind of assuming that is what you meant)? Thanks.