The specs of the Xonar STX is very good and it has Dolby Headphone for immersive surround sound but it's worth taking a closer look at the specs and some alternatives.   The AKG 702 65th Anniversary Edition Very nice headphone. has a frequency response of between 8Hz-39.8kHz which is...

Quote:   I finally ran an analog comparison test on the multichannel analog input receiver and a higher quality stereo receiver. It turns out that the receiver is just fine when used for a multichannel analog source. If it's set to the 2 channel aux source the noise increased...

Quote:   Thanks. They all sound ok in slightly different ways, even the standard stereo. Quote: After comparing my headphone out and the analog multichannel out and effectively muting specific channels to see what sound is present from each position, I can say it is the individual...

After discussing all the various options for virtual headphone surround I think I missed the obvious. To recap, all the options such as DH, CMSS-3D, THX, SBX etc take the available native audio (usually 5.1) and try to recreate the multichannel sound convincingly over stereo headphones through...

Quote: So SBX/THX simulate virtual surround from a standard stereo source and CMSS-3D decodes an enhanced stereo source? Thanks     Quote: As OpenAL and DS3D are still comparatively rare in games compared to 5.1 but still may be used in specific games a person likes it's a shame...

Quote:     Quote:   In light of this I don't see why it would be worth worrying too much about 3D audio in games unless the specific games we like has a 3D headphone audio option. Thanks.

I'm doing a similar setup and have done a lot of reading to try to get it right.   Reading Amazon reviews,The Kinovo seems a bit buggy and their website does not state if the optical output will take multichannel audio from HDMI and convert that to multichannel over optical. I think it's...

I can see opinions here are divided between all the available option and each persons experience along with the explanation of how things work should allow a more informed decision. But I'm left wondering one thing: how common are the different audio encoding options in games? Are most games now...

Quote: Actually, I do have another question on this. I'm assuming games that are encoded to use 3D surround on a headphone also include 5.1/7.1 for use with home cinema systems?

Quote:   Again, a nice summary of how each one may sound. Thanks.

Quote:   Quote:   That was very useful. I had seen a lot of that before such as the YouTube vids and some quotes you referenced, but the explanation of how 3D surround works was not so clearly provided elsewhere. Thanks.

Quote: Ok thanks. So rather than simulate a 5.1/7.1 suround speaker setup CMSS-3D simulates a virtual 3d space using audio perceived co-ordinates. That's very different to Dolby Headphone that tries to simulate the native 5.1/7.1   Card is on my mb, either multichannel analog out or...

Quote: That does sound very neat. But given speaker systems are 5.1/7.1 doesn't that mean such x,y,z co-ordinates are only in-game audio that are generated in real time and then being output as discrete 5.1/7.1 and it's the 5.1/7.1 that is used in a virtual headphone implementation? Or is...

Quote: Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.

Quote:   That's great. I'll take a read of that soon.   Going by a post date on the Creative forum, CMSS-3D seems like the oldest standard compared to Dolby Headphone, THX TruStudio Pro and SBX. Usually with tech the newest is best but I guess as they all try to do the same thing it's...