[cgi1775]

. So using an open headphones such as hd 598 or others like it for gaming. I'm curios about the benefits of standard dac/amp compared to something like the mixamp/tritton decoder box. I have read here and there on the net that using surround sound like the mixamp kind of goofs up the accuracy of the natural abbilites of those open headphones. I have seen that the standard dac/amp makes beautiful positioning for shooters and such with openback phones. Any thoughts on that .

 

[cgi1775]

Shoot. Was supposed to say dac/amping. Auto corrected me

 

[ProtegeManiac]

. So using an open headphones such as hd 598 or others like it for gaming. I'm curios about the benefits of standard dac/amp compared to something like the mixamp/tritton decoder box. I have read here and there on the net that using surround sound like the mixamp kind of goofs up the accuracy of the natural abbilites of those open headphones. I have seen that the standard dac/amp makes beautiful positioning for shooters and such with openback phones. Any thoughts on that .

 

It doesn't "goof up" the accuracy if you're playing video games since it's trying to make the sound more natural. On speakers both ears hear all the speakers, and DSP tricks like Crossfeed and Virtual Surround simulates that. It just depends on what particular material you're working with (Crossfeed is a mroe natural solution for 2ch audio; virtual surround adds reverb to simulate greater distance for surround sound). Of course, if you're listening to 2ch music, virtual surround will "goof up" the sound.

 

In a sense, listening to a system that totally doesn't do anything to "goof up" the sound just means you're basically letting the headphones do all the "goofing up," since in a headphone left ear hears only the left driver and right ear only hears the right driver, as opposed to a speaker system where left hears both left and right and right hears both left and right. Or both left and right hear surround Left, Front Left, Center, Front Right, Surround Right, and the LFE Channel/Subwoofer.

 

If you're playing shooter games for example using plain 2ch audio will be what will "goof up" the entire experience because, in the real world, do you hear sounds to the left only with the left ear? You don't. If people are encountering decent positioning with no DSP units like the MixAmp or a soundcard, that's not from lack of any DSP trick at all, but they just have it purely in the software domain - Razer Surround is one, and some games have a native virtual surround simulation, headphone-specific audio program. If you're playing Sniper Elite II which has only 2ch audio, then none of these will help, since hardware DSP and Razer Surround require that they receive a surround signal first.

 

If it's just a matter of clean levels of power output, the HD598 barely needs more than what the Mixamp kicks out, so unless it has a high output impedance, chances are it's tough to tell the difference vs DAC-HPamps once the DSP tricks are disabled.