I have a question about sbx pro studio.
I have a sound blaster z, HD800, and DAC/AMP. I always gamed at 67% surround, and the sound was very clean and also distinct.
However, I also have an X7 (don't use it on my pc), and in that thread, people recommend to use 100% surround for immersion. I tried this on my Z, and I feel like the sound is mixed together/muddled, lowering the sound quality. At the same time, I feel like its easier to pinpoint a sound. At 67%, I could clearly hear the direction of sound, but pinpointing it is more difficult.
What do you guys have to say about this? What do you use? Also, does the x7 have better sound processing than the sound blaster z for surround? Should I just use that for my pc?
Edited for emphasis.
This is something I've been curious about as well but haven't really seen any discussion about it.
Years ago I discovered binaural/HRTF, and thanks to this community learned the benefits of it to get further immersed in a game.
I still have a few questions that remain unanswered... been to lazy to actually research my questions.
Q) How exactly does this (SBX) work? I don't know how else to ask this, but I understand the basics and goal of the whole process.
How and what does this do to the "source" signal, the "final" signal made by a game's engine which includes all positions and environmental processing?
Since games output discrete channels (any exceptions?), how does SBX deal with games that output DOES NOT MATCH your configured channels (Game does not match Windows)?
Some games partially "support" surround sound by adding silent channels, so how is this handled? Depending on how SBX mixes channels, this can be a big problem for sound source positioning in these games.
How does the processing change/mix the discrete source channels as you increase or decrease the processing level?
Are there really any differences in SBX between products besides hardware/DACs? I ask as I've seen people say that 67% is the default setting. I have an Omni and the default is 40%.
There is a little red arrow marking the default setting below the slider grip. Is this arrow at 67% on other devices? If yes, I wonder if these different default settings are truly different or if it's visual only and both 40% and 67% really sound the same. I don't have any other SBX devices, so I can't really test this myself.
Does anyone know of a way to test SBX (or others)? IMO we shouldn't be using standard test files, like for speaker configuration/phasing for Home Theatre. We need something that can do dynamic positioning in real time just like a game, but unlike a game we need to have some control over this. I wonder how processing soundstage really looks in the various HRTF methods. Is their soundstage a sphere, cone, cube, hallway? What I mean is, lets take a lightsaber sound and have it
circle us and never changing distance. Let's just say we all think it sounds like it's 10 feet away. With SBX processing, does it maintain this distance? Does it stay circular, or change to another shape? Does it transition between angles smoothly and evenly or does it speed up and/or slow down only at specific angles?