I have not any problem with the sound provided by the Realtek ALC1220 audio codec on my mobo, the Asrock X570 Taichi. That said, it is doing only the DAC function. The piece of hardware that finally drives my headphones is the SMSL SP200 headphone amplifier.

It's been a while since I got these. Initially I did not like them much. I found their sound signature less vibrant than the average on my other cheap dynamic headphones back then. But boy, oh boy, as time has passed, these have become my favorite, especially after equalizing them a little. In...

I have tried quite a few options for getting surround sound with stereo headphones on my PC. All of them except one were software solutions. The only hardware device I have used for this purpose have been the external USB sound card Creative Sound Blaster X3, featuring Creative's Super X-FI...

You might try this in case you haven't yet. Uninstall everything you can think might be interfering in your issue. Then before installing Waves NX, make sure you have the Sabrent audio adapter connected and selected as the default audio playback device. Honestly, I do not think it will fix the...

Have you Equalizer APO and HeSuVi installed? These two together caused an issue like the one you describe when I had Waves NX installed. Other than that I cannot think of anything else, sorry.

And how does it work? Is the effect noticeable in games? For a short time I tried Atmos and DTS for headphones in Windows 10 long ago, but I did not find any of them noticeable enough back then. Perhaps it was an issue with my personal system, I don't know for sure.

From my experience, 2004 update of W10 has had an effect on audio settings. Prior to this update I had set a buffer of 512 samples on Waves NX app for Windows with no sound issues at all. Since the latest 2004 update of W10 I have had to lower the buffer to just 64 samples, because otherwise it...

I may have speak spoken too quick too soon. I have been enjoying a few songs from Dead can dance at high volume with Redscape for the last fifteen minutes or so and it certainly sounds very cool, man. I think some of the reviews out there mentioned that point. That you need to play whatever...

Is the head tracker you are talking about here? Is it not responding as you expected? I purchased the software. For the last few weeks I have been using it mainly for gaming (The sims 4 on Windows, not a game where positional audio matters much, that is a fact), but also while watching some...

Are you using the head tracker? As I am not playing anything Virtual Reality anytime soon, I am thinking of getting just the software without the HT, because it doubles the price. EDIT: That is why I wonder if it is worth paying twice as much for getting the head tracker.

As a fan of surround audio virtualization over headphones and user of Waves NX myself, Redscape looks promising. I did not know about it before, but now I will definitely try it. Thank you.

Personally I set my headphone amp volume to 12 o'clock and vary Windows volume if needed. It just works perfectly fine for me. You can try that procedure and then the other way around (fixing Windows volume to a certain level, just as you are doing till now, and vary your HF amp volume level as...

At first I did not like my HF 580. I thought they sounded darker and worse than my chi-fi dynamic headphones. But I kept using them and eventually I started to like their sound signature. They still are my everyday cans on the PC. I did not modify my HF 580 in any way.

So, what you are saying is that while gaming you are hearing gunfire in general much louder than footsteps. Is that? That is normal, I think. Have you tried configuring in-game sound options to your like? Perhaps you can increase footsteps volume and decrease gunfire's.

The M11 should output at least 195mW for a load of 32 Ohms connected to the 3.5 mm port, according to specs. https://www.fiio.com/m11_parameters That should be OK to drive properly enough the Phantom (~47 Ohms / ~93 dB). If I were you I would just try them with just the M11. If you do not like...