Zurg
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2002
- Posts
- 82
- Likes
- 11
So I just downloaded the free demo of WinDVD 4 on my laptop. I put it in headphone mode and slipped a CD ("absolutely the best of Keely Smith"). The CD started playing, and then I switched on "Dolby Headphone" processing.....
>>>YOU GOTTA TRY THIS!!!
I was very impressed with the expansion of the soundstage. It not only got the "blobs" out of my head, but it seemed to improve the imaging of the instruments and vocals without blurring the sound. To my ears, it works much better than other "Crossfeed" circuits I have listened to in various headphone amps. There is nothing subtle about the effect, it makes a huge diffence.
OK, so what's the downside?
I hate listening to music out of my laptop. It's incredibly noisy and generates lots of weird, distracting, transient sounds. I would really like a solution that works with my home stereo and or my portable player.
WinDVD 4 really is aimed mostly at playing DVDs. If I have other programs running, (...like my web browser), while I am running it, it often hiccups.
The thing that surprised me most is that from what I have read, I expected Dolby Headphone to really only be effective when feeding it a multichannel dolby 5.1 audio signal ( like from a DVD). It seems, to me, that it works just fine on regular stereo CDs. I have read, in other posts, that some "Dolby Headphone" software players only process multichannel sound, not stereo.
The free version of WinDVD only last for 30 days. They say that it only plays the first 5 minutes of a DVD. It seems to play all the way through the CDs, however.
I haven't done extensive listening yet with different types of music.
I guess lot's of people have been waiting for some time for someone to build a headphone amp that includes "Dolby Headphone". If anyone knows of one please let me know.
The other alternative is if someone wrote a program that let you "Dolby Headphone" encode wav/mp3 files. Then you could burn them to CDs and listen to them on regular home or portable systems. Of course pre-encoded CDs would only work well for headphone playback. It would be a drag to have to re-encode and re-burn my collection...but it might be worth it!!!
If anyone else tries this out, I would be very interested in you opinion.
-z
>>>YOU GOTTA TRY THIS!!!
I was very impressed with the expansion of the soundstage. It not only got the "blobs" out of my head, but it seemed to improve the imaging of the instruments and vocals without blurring the sound. To my ears, it works much better than other "Crossfeed" circuits I have listened to in various headphone amps. There is nothing subtle about the effect, it makes a huge diffence.
OK, so what's the downside?
I hate listening to music out of my laptop. It's incredibly noisy and generates lots of weird, distracting, transient sounds. I would really like a solution that works with my home stereo and or my portable player.
WinDVD 4 really is aimed mostly at playing DVDs. If I have other programs running, (...like my web browser), while I am running it, it often hiccups.
The thing that surprised me most is that from what I have read, I expected Dolby Headphone to really only be effective when feeding it a multichannel dolby 5.1 audio signal ( like from a DVD). It seems, to me, that it works just fine on regular stereo CDs. I have read, in other posts, that some "Dolby Headphone" software players only process multichannel sound, not stereo.
The free version of WinDVD only last for 30 days. They say that it only plays the first 5 minutes of a DVD. It seems to play all the way through the CDs, however.
I haven't done extensive listening yet with different types of music.
I guess lot's of people have been waiting for some time for someone to build a headphone amp that includes "Dolby Headphone". If anyone knows of one please let me know.
The other alternative is if someone wrote a program that let you "Dolby Headphone" encode wav/mp3 files. Then you could burn them to CDs and listen to them on regular home or portable systems. Of course pre-encoded CDs would only work well for headphone playback. It would be a drag to have to re-encode and re-burn my collection...but it might be worth it!!!
If anyone else tries this out, I would be very interested in you opinion.
-z