[Monstieur]

Hoping someone can help clear up a few details for me with regards to the sound modes:

Aside from handling 96k instead of 48k Audio Sample Rates, is there any other difference between Hi-Res and 7.1 with 3D switched off?
Is there any reason to use Hi-Res mode if the audio file is 48k or less?

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https://www.audeze.com/about-audeze/blog/mobius-detailed-usb-functionality

"
USB Modes:

1. 8 Channel Input (Playback) - 2 Channel Output (Mic), 24 Bit/48 Khz, 3D Emulation and Head-Tracking enabled.
2. 2 Channel Input (Playback) - 2 Channel Output (Mic), 16 Bit/48 Khz, 3D Emulation and Head-Tracking enabled.
3. 2 Channel Hi-Res Input (Playback) - 2 Channel Output (Mic), 24 Bit/96 Khz, 3D Emulation enabled, Head-Tracking disabled.

"
It's suggested here that Hi-Res supports 3D emulation with no Head-Tracking. Has anyone managed to find out how to make this work? In my experience, Hi-Res is a very nice sounding stereo headphone, but I can't notice any 3D emulation.

The FAQ seems to be incorrect. There is another page which says 3D is also disabled in Hi-Res mode, which seems to be the case. I also want a head-tracking disabled, 3D enabled mode, with no room reverberation.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

The FAQ seems to be incorrect. There is another page which says 3D is also disabled in Hi-Res mode, which seems to be the case. I also want a head-tracking disabled, 3D enabled mode, with no room reverberation.

Which is impossible.

You can lower the amount of reverb with room ambience, but you can't eliminate it. If you do, you're not gonna get 3d mode. 3D = virtualizing a room. With that you NEED room reflections. There needs set amount of distance between a sound and you for you to get '3D'. This is why literally every single virtual surround dsp like:

Dolby Headphone
Creative THX Tru Studio
Creative SBX
Sennheiser GSX
Razer Surround
Darin Fong's Out Of Your Head
etc, etc, etc

All have some amount of reverb. SBX is the best in keeping it at a bare minimum for the amount of headspace you get, but you can't eliminate it.

The best Audeze could possibly do is allow us to disable headtracking but allow 3D to remain on, but that's it.

Lower your room ambience setting to low levels if reverb bothers you, but no way you're gonna get anything less than that.

And yes, hi res turns off both headtracking and 3D. You can't have headtracking without 3D, but 3D should be possible without headtracking, as it is a virtual surround dsp, like the examples I made above. It's just not at the moment possible on the Mobius.

edit: to add, Hesuvi does have some options that do virtual surround without reverb, but it's more like they cut off the echo aspect of reverb. Like a culling. This is not a normal process, and it sounds unnatural. think of someone in a room hitting a drum, but silencing the room immediately after impact. I dunno. It's weird. It sounds fine as a headphone only thing, but not representative of what virtual surround is achieving to do, which is giving a sense of you being in a room with speakers.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

To add, you honestly shouldn't ever need to use 3D Off mode or 2Ch mode if you don't want 3D surround. Just use Hi Res instead, even on bluetooth. That is, unless you are on some old system that can't use Hi-res. Hi-Res is basically 3D Off, stereo, but with an even cleaner sound, and quality signal.

2Ch/3D Off is basically there for compatibility reasons. Not a necessity whatsoever otherwise.

I don't understand Rtings and the clamping complaints. I ALWAYS complain about clamping problems, but the Mobius is perfectly fine there. I have a big head. Everything is typically tight on my head. The Mobius is not. It's good a good amount.

 

[Zenvota]

You can lower the amount of reverb with room ambience, but you can't eliminate it. If you do, you're not gonna get 3d mode. 3D = virtualizing a room. With that you NEED room reflections. There needs set amount of distance between a sound and you for you to get '3D'.

Hmm, I've tried setting room ambiance to 0 and it just sounds like near field monitors, i.e. no first reflections.

And yes, hi res turns off both headtracking and 3D. You can't have headtracking without 3D, but 3D should be possible without headtracking, as it is a virtual surround dsp, like the examples I made above. It's just not at the moment possible on the Mobius.

I believe they said they're working on disabling head tracking with 3d on in an upcoming firmware update.

Just use Hi Res instead,

For 16/44 music though this is doing upsampling, I don't recall high res doing anything else besides being able to handle 24/96 and should only be used for that material.

 

[misteral201103]

Somewhat randomly but...today I discovered Fiio have a beta Music Player app for Android.
Not having one in my phone, I grabbed it - bare-bones but works really nicely. Currently listening to some EDM through the Mobius on BT and I'd say I've found my music player!
A search on Google for Fiio Android App will get you the link you need.
Apologies for off-topic post but thought I'd pop it here in case someone is in the same boat as me and discovering their phone as a music player for the first time!!!

 

[Zenvota]

Somewhat randomly but...today I discovered Fiio have a beta Music Player app for Android.
Not having one in my phone, I grabbed it - bare-bones but works really nicely. Currently listening to some EDM through the Mobius on BT and I'd say I've found my music player!
A search on Google for Fiio Android App will get you the link you need.
Apologies for off-topic post but thought I'd pop it here in case someone is in the same boat as me and discovering their phone as a music player for the first time!!!

Thanks for sharing. I use USB Audio Player Pro because of the nice parametric eq =o

 

[Audeze]

Hoping someone can help clear up a few details for me with regards to the sound modes.
2 Channel Hi-Res Input (Playback) - 2 Channel Output (Mic), 24 Bit/96 Khz, 3D Emulation enabled, Head-Tracking disabled.
"
It's suggested here that Hi-Res supports 3D emulation with no Head-Tracking. Has anyone managed to find out how to make this work? In my experience, Hi-Res is a very nice sounding stereo headphone, but I can't notice any 3D emulation.

This is a mistake in our blog. HIRes does not support 3D emulation. We will correct it.

 

[RamSpencer]

I've just returned from my vacation and have been listening to these for a couple days when I have time. I'm mostly using them with 3d for music. I really dig them so far. It's hard to turn the 3d off. I'm a big speakers more so than headphones and these are doing a pretty impressive job of simulating them. Kudos. I'll get into some detailed impressions at some point when I've had more time with them.

I'm looking forward to that personal EQ tweak add-on in the Audeze software. I like upping the bass a bit and pulling the highs down just a tad over music EQ mode with the EQ in Poweramp for Android. Can't do that globally across the device.

No hiss or weird noises. Listening attentively in a quiet environment, the powered on noise floor is way below the noise floor of most songs. It's not even going to register in most instances. At first it didn't even occur to me that it was there. It's also way below the noise floor of good ANC headphones. Either some people are insanely hypersensitive, or there would have to be some variation between units. These are great.

Sometimes the auto head tracking mode is slightly buggy. Not adjusting for smaller angle changes even after several seconds.

 

[Runo]

[…]
I don't understand Rtings and the clamping complaints. I ALWAYS complain about clamping problems, but the Mobius is perfectly fine there. I have a big head. Everything is typically tight on my head. The Mobius is not. It's good a good amount.

I do a little, it does clamp more than other phones I have, and I'd say after a few hours, I do start to feel it. What I find much more problematic tho—for me personally!—is that it seals so well I have pressure on my ears everytime I accidentally bump the cups (especially the left one) or they shift on my head. It's really unpleasant. I hope there's gonna be velour pads someday (that you don't have to diy together somehow) that don't seal as well as the pleather ones. It's so annoying to me that I've almost thought about piercing the pads and glueing some pressure compensation tube in or something.
Also, I find the "centered" prompt gets somewhat tiresome when you have to center them a lot (I have to switch between different screens a lot, and every time, I either center of have to endure the time until auto has realigned it—both aren't ideal). It's one of the reasons I mostly disable headtracking (and with it, 3D, unfortunately) after some time. I wish I could set it to be just a soft "blip" or something, without audio ducking, etc.…

 

[Zenvota]

I hope there's gonna be velour pads someday (that you don't have to diy together somehow) that don't seal as well as the pleather ones

You could try just sliding on some velour pads and see if you like the sound, no diy or modding involved just pop the stock pads off and pull something like the brainwavz velour over the earcup.

The diy little baffle I made is pretty simple, and drastically improved the sound of the brainwavz pads. You just need 1 or 2 cd cases(with a clear top) and a sheet of 1mm felt.

Place the clear cd case top over the earcup and trace out the cup. Then just cut it with some scissors and tape it back together with masking tape. You could probably use a glue stick to secure the felt to the plastic ring. For the second piece of felt its your call if you want to use it. The actual pads just slide over the cup and sit very securely.

 

[Zenvota]

Also, I find the "centered" prompt gets somewhat tiresome when you have to center them a lot (I have to switch between different screens a lot, and every time, I either center of have to endure the time until auto has realigned it—both aren't ideal). It's one of the reasons I mostly disable headtracking (and with it, 3D, unfortunately) after some time. I wish I could set it to be just a soft "blip" or something, without audio ducking, etc.…

What would be great, is if the app had a programmable centering hotkey with or even without a confirmation blip. @Audeze @KMann

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Hmm, I've tried setting room ambiance to 0 and it just sounds like near field monitors, i.e. no first reflections.


I believe they said they're working on disabling head tracking with 3d on in an upcoming firmware update.



For 16/44 music though this is doing upsampling, I don't recall high res doing anything else besides being able to handle 24/96 and should only be used for that material.

That's because room ambience zero is stereo. Your more or less just turning 3D off.

I have NEVER had a problem using 24/96 on non-24/96 content. None whatsoever. In fact, from my understanding, you maintain more of the source file information when you lower volume compared to the bit loss when you keep to 16/44-48 and lower volume. I'm not 100% on this.

In any case, again, I maintain that there really is no need to not do hi-res if you want plain stereo unless your system ain't compatible.

 

[KMann]

Hmm, I've tried setting room ambiance to 0 and it just sounds like near field monitors, i.e. no first reflections.

With Room ambiance turned off, the depth will be reduced close to what is typical of headphones but bit better as you will have an effect similar to cross-feed, head tracking will still anchor the sound.

 

[Shryquill]

Here are a couple more suggested features:

*Being able to adjust the audio balance left/right channels, and for 5.1/7.1 content, the audio fade front/rear channels. I've found the rear speakers are top quiet for FPS , and when looking around I can actually loose detail when things are happening behind me.
*User custom EQ presets
*Ability to turn off unwanted presets
*Ability to rebind button layout on device
*User made profiles for different use-cases, selectable by cycling through on device: Bluetooth Hi-Res music EQ profiles, USB 3D gaming ballistics EQ profiles all preset at the switch of a button.

Plenty gaming headsets have user customised profiles, so that could be a valuable feature for people really setting the Mobius up for their own experiences

 

[acia]

I've just returned from my vacation and have been listening to these for a couple days when I have time. I'm mostly using them with 3d for music. I really dig them so far. It's hard to turn the 3d off. I'm a big speakers more so than headphones and these are doing a pretty impressive job of simulating them. Kudos. I'll get into some detailed impressions at some point when I've had more time with them.

I'm looking forward to that personal EQ tweak add-on in the Audeze software. I like upping the bass a bit and pulling the highs down just a tad over music EQ mode with the EQ in Poweramp for Android. Can't do that globally across the device.

No hiss or weird noises. Listening attentively in a quiet environment, the powered on noise floor is way below the noise floor of most songs. It's not even going to register in most instances. At first it didn't even occur to me that it was there. It's also way below the noise floor of good ANC headphones. Either some people are insanely hypersensitive, or there would have to be some variation between units. These are great.

Sometimes the auto head tracking mode is slightly buggy. Not adjusting for smaller angle changes even after several seconds.

my exp of 3d auto is that the self correction is buttery smooth! kudos @Audeze.