[Rorik]

This is a brief warning for anyone considering buying a new Xbox console. Sadly the Xbox Series X & S have no optical out, they also have no bluetooth functionality, and very worst of all they have no USB audio. That means the only audio you get to enjoy with your wonderful audiophile setup, is the garbled, compressed audio from the Xbox controller. Don't make my mistake if you enjoy your game audio... stick to PC or Sony. I knew I shouldn't have jumped ship.

Also the Antlion Modmic Wireless 100% DOES NOT work. What a terrible step backwards for a next gen console.

There's an alternative that involves plugging the mic to a smartphone or PC, and use the Remote Play feature of Xbox app just to "connect" the mic. This way, even USB mics work, like the Blue Snowball and Blue Yeti. A bit cumbersome, but this way you keep good quality on both output and voice input.

 

[rc10mike]

As a PS5 player, we lost the optical output as well, but I wasnt aware Xbox cannot even do USB audio. This console generation really sucks for audio. PS5 3D Audio sounds terrible, tried everything I could to get it to sound acceptable and it was still trash.

 

[whitedragem]

As a PS5 player, we lost the optical output as well, but I wasnt aware Xbox cannot even do USB audio. This console generation really sucks for audio. PS5 3D Audio sounds terrible, tried everything I could to get it to sound acceptable and it was still trash.

As someone who considers themself a bit of a guru when it comes to PC sound through the ages.. (having come from the earliest soundblaster days, and buying into each iteration of sound card for decades..); the Playstation 5 is incredible for how it builds up and layers an audio soundscape.. (and this time around these sorts of technologies have widespread ed engine adoptions)..
I must admit that from a purely technical excellence point of view, for whatever reason it so happens to be this way.. the quality of the digital out through the HDMI from my graphics card is exceptional. (for some games it equal/better to the Playstation 5.. might not have so many channels or points of sound doing quite so much.. but seems to do so with a greater noise flaw/signal to noise ratio in place.. (to be fair my PCs’ power supply costs as much as a Playstation 5, as does the mainboard and GPU and are all examples of some of the better bits for power regulation.)

having sound output in a compatible format that a surround receiver can use is handy.. thats what Dolby Atmos brings.. and ‘yes’ it is highly accurate in terms of positioning..
but it has nothing on sound that has been traced through a 3D world, akin to light raytracing,. done with audio,.. where just like light with ‘sub surface scattering’ and other advanced calculations, with audio waves can be effected by the material properties of the surfaces they contact. (In this regard the Tempest Audio engine on Playstation works for surround sound and headphones.. both get the result of an audio environment built up using proper acoustic modelling (and not fake echo and reflections etc like we had for many decades).
This tech has been around for a quarter of a century.. in terms of PC audio.
whilst the playstation one had eight basic echo effects that could be employed, as did things like Nintendos DS handhelds, the PS Vita and Playstation VR (1) had versions of an proper hardware audio tech we hadn’t seen in digital entertainment since we lost Aureal A3D in the 90’s(maybe early 2000s).
This is a super exciting time for audio engines in games,..
And for the Xbox side of the coin, Forza Horizon 5, as if Microsoft wanted to show off they could be equal to a Playstation, came up with a clever sound engine (heres hoping Fable makes use of it, which is a most likely thing),. and the race game should be doing some nice things with audio.

Anyone having troubles with hearing headphone surround / HRTFs simulated ‘surround sound’ encoded sources needs to get their system sorted out.. simple really- the basics comes down to finding the flatest frequecy responce ‘studio’ sound headphones (that are comfortable) to wear, and them amplifying them linearly with ‘nothing done to the signal’. (alright purifiers on lines if desired etc, .but no ‘echo’ effects or engaging surround modes on various processors etc.. just two channel UNALTERED sound.

(and do not forget to config each headset individually when choosing a HRTF profile..)

It is good to focus on headsets that have a wide soundfield and decent ‘front to back’ ‘airspace or imaging (natively/without DSP to simulate this)..
that being said some Audeze mobius sound alright with a console (eg using fiio BTA30, although this thread seems to suggest xboxs do not do USB audio which the other consoles do (UAC1 products typcially)).. that same BTA30 does really well with some Sennheiser IE80 BTs earbuds (especially great for VR), and tempest audio fed into those is one of the more impressive audio experiences for gaming audio I have ever heard (I mention because Addicted to Audio seems to still have them on clearance for 25% of their total cost and these are FLAGSHIP IEMs)

cheers, and just wanted to chime in, but, as someone into gaming audio, things are finally starting to get interesting again…