[PurpleAngel]

  I need some help in regards to what i should do. I only care for audio in competitive games specifically CSGO. For the last 3-4 years I've been using pc360 and Xonar Essence STX, now either my ears are ****ed up or i need some new gear. Because i feel like i miss out on sounds in-game that e.g. my friends with pc350 and only on-board sound card can pin point.
So first of all, what settings should i be using in the STX audio center to make this situation optimal?
Currently i have:
Audio channels: 2
Sample Rate PCM: 44.1Khz
Analog out: Headphone
And not touched anything else.
Secondly if i should spend money and get some new gear, what would be the best possible setup for competitive games where directional sounds and "where people are stuff" is the only thing that matters to me.
I've been trying to find suggestions to this on here, but there's so many and I'm going nuts trying to figure out whats the best
So far I've gathered that these have been recommended a lot for this use case:
AD700x, K612 pro, Fidelio x2, HD558, HD598
As far as AMPs go I've seen the FiiO E10K, E11K and E09K recommended.
But i have no clue which headphones needs one.
Have i missed any?
Which one is best for my use case in CSGO, and if i need what AMP should i get?

 
Did you disable the motherboard's on-board audio, in the BIOS, before installing the Essence STX and the Asus software?
Set the STX's Audio Channel to 6 speaker (or is it 6 channel?)
 
Do you set CSGO to 6-channel output
I've never played CSGO, so I'm just guessing at the settings.
 
Try the Unified Xonar Drivers
http://maxedtech.com/asus-xonar-unified-drivers/
 
The Sennheiser HD558, HD598, PC360, PC363, GAME ONE, etc, all seem to use the same 50-Ohm driver.
 
I do not think adding an external headphone amplifier to the STX will solve the issue, as the STX has way more then enough to drive the 50-Ohm PC360 headset

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I've been using maxed out volume setting in windows \ STX audio center and only a bit below middle of the volume knob on the headphones. Could this actually have damaged the headphones?
Instead i should turn windows down and headphones to max all the time?
And finally i saw in the guide thread for STX that the HP advance setting was important, so if anyone here knows what it should be set to with my headphones PC360 that would be great.
Ive been using the default: Normal Gain or for <64ohms headsets, the other choices would be "High Gain or for 64~300ohms" and "High Gain or for 300~600ohms".

 
Using the <64-Ohm setting is what you would normally want use with 50-Ohm headphones, but it should be fine to use the 64~300 setting with the PC360.

 

[raband]

   
With the history of Creative sound cards, I'm really making guesses about what Creative did and why they did it.
I would assume Realtek, C-Media, VIA, etc, all try to off load work to the main CPU.
To me it just makes good business sense (for any company) to off load as much audio processing as possible, on to the main CPU, it's like free horse power.

 
Wasn't it a change in the OS that forced their hand rather than any decision at their end?
 
When Vista was released it changed the whole audio subsystem?? to do all the heavy lifting inside windows before handing over the stream to the soundcards?
 
I can recall it being a huge PITA trying to get my SB card I had at the time to work with Vista - there was even a 3rd party unofficial driver that was pretty much required (but shot down/sued by creative for fixing their broken product)
 
I wasn't impressed at the time - I'd bought an expensive card with all the goodies 6 months earlier - then was left with an almost useless product on "upgrading" to Vista. Even when they finally got drivers released it was still crippled and buggy.
 
Vista caused the change - Creative totally shafted everyone by not reacting to it, not releasing drivers for their products despite (I'd imagine) having the opportunity to develop well before release and by shooting down the drivers the 3rd party "altered" that actually bought functionality back to the cards.
 
Almost repeated again with Windows 10 - I don't see any excuse at all for them to not have drivers ready at least on release date, especially with how prevalent the Developer Preview was - I think it was good month before windows 10 drivers were released for much of their line

 

[Sam21]

when are those VR headsets coming out ? *******ed Audiophiles made me totally forget about vision.

 

[3rdAmigo]

Right!!!!!!!!
 
I have been doing some serious hardcore :/   testing
 
This morning I took delivarance of the AKG 702; Creative Sound Blaster E5 and FiiO E10 olympus AMP/DAC
 
I am flabbergasted!!
 
This headphone seems to perform better in games in its purest form. This confused me at first my ears refused to believe it!
 
So, to make sure  I am not going insane   I would like advice please.  I have disabled onboard sound via BIOS. I have also disabld the realtek drivers for my motherboard. Also I have disabled the AMD HDMI drivers.
 
8 hours of battlefiled in all manner of maps from Golmud to Pearl Market. The 702 appears to perform connsiderably better without any 3d sound enaabled, i.e just using an amp.
 
I tried for hours with the SB E5 and the SBX 'surround'
 
imagine my surprise, having tried SBX from 33% to 100% that it siimply did not compare to the AKG 702 in its natural form. No suround just an AMP/DAC  (Focusrite Scarlett Solo AMP or FiiO E10)
 
I dont know whether to be disapointed in the Sound Blaster E5 or to be in awe of the AKG 702 and its innate ability to perform 3D sound without any 'fancy' software.
 
Tomorrow I recieve the AKG K612 and the Sennheiser Game -one headphones. If anyone is interested I can post my thoughts? perhaps I should be posting this stuff in the 'surround' thread?

 

[alv4426]

This has probably been mentioned in this thread somewhere but do you guys know some way to hook up an Xbox One to my PC with a Creative ZxR sound card WITH the ability to chat through the ZxR?  I don't have a Xbox headset adapter or a headset and I don't really want to get one if I don't need it. Ive been using the xbox through toslink but I haven't need to chat until now.  I dont think its possible but any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[PurpleAngel]

  This has probably been mentioned in this thread somewhere but do you guys know some way to hook up an Xbox One to my PC with a Creative ZxR sound card WITH the ability to chat through the ZxR?  I don't have a Xbox headset adapter or a headset and I don't really want to get one if I don't need it. Ive been using the xbox through toslink but I haven't need to chat until now.  I dont think its possible but any help would be appreciated, thanks

 
Your chat would need to feed into the xBox, so why even get the SB-ZxR involved?

 

[alv4426]

I'd like to use its software and mic, but yeah Im not sure how to get the signal back to the xbox. I just read up a little on hooking up desktop mics to the xbox and they all use the headset adapter to do it which I guess answers my question. Meh, I guess its a good excuse to buy some new gear.

 

[st0neh]

  Ps4 is selling record numbers, xbone not too far behind. That's a big install base. Why can creative not design a SBX lossless (HDMI( surround device for them that sounds better than the mixamp? Seems like a no brainer to me.

 
Does the PS4 even have any lossless gaming audio to work with? I'd assume all the games are going to just be using compressed formats anyway.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by 3rdAmigo /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Right!!!!!!!!
 
I have been doing some serious hardcore :/   testing
 
This morning I took delivarance of the AKG 702; Creative Sound Blaster E5 and FiiO E10 olympus AMP/DAC
 
I am flabbergasted!!
 
This headphone seems to perform better in games in its purest form. This confused me at first my ears refused to believe it!
 
So, to make sure  I am not going insane   I would like advice please.  I have disabled onboard sound via BIOS. I have also disabld the realtek drivers for my motherboard. Also I have disabled the AMD HDMI drivers.
 
8 hours of battlefiled in all manner of maps from Golmud to Pearl Market. The 702 appears to perform connsiderably better without any 3d sound enaabled, i.e just using an amp.
 
I tried for hours with the SB E5 and the SBX 'surround'
 
imagine my surprise, having tried SBX from 33% to 100% that it siimply did not compare to the AKG 702 in its natural form. No suround just an AMP/DAC  (Focusrite Scarlett Solo AMP or FiiO E10)
 
I dont know whether to be disapointed in the Sound Blaster E5 or to be in awe of the AKG 702 and its innate ability to perform 3D sound without any 'fancy' software.
 
Tomorrow I recieve the AKG K612 and the Sennheiser Game -one headphones. If anyone is interested I can post my thoughts? perhaps I should be posting this stuff in the 'surround' thread?

 
What settings is Battlefield set to? IIRC it already has its own surround processing mix when you set it to headphones so you may already be receiving virtual surround. Enabling it via your sound card may just be processing it twice and making it sound worse.

 

[3rdAmigo]

Hi guys. I recieved the Game-one headset today from Seinnheiser.
 
AKG k702; AKG k 612Pro; Sennheiser Game-one
 
Having used the SBX features in my SB-E5 Their appears to be little diference in battlefield 4, the headphones perform better for positional audio in their purest form, without anything other than an AMP. SBX surround just sounds more 'echoey', the reverb doesnt seem to do its job (gaming) properly regardless of settings used whether its 10% or 100%. The 612 is definately difficult to drive! Even With the SB-E5 I can go max volume, its borderline. Pffff now I am thinking return the E5 and buy a Schiit stack

  However, I have not yet tried the k612 for gaming yet I will do that this evening and report back.
 
As Mad Lust Envy pointed out the AKG702 is not so nice/fun to listen to, yes the positional sound in fps games is incredible but I am slowly getting back into my music having decided to buy some nice headphones and realising how nice they can be to listen to, through?
 
I like classical, also "2 cello's" (a band ...you tube search   Rolling Stones, ACDC, Nirvana, The Eels, Jazz, Blues, Marley, Jon Butler. The  'hang drum' (e.g hang massive) sounds amazing on these phones! . the hang drum sounds incredible on the K612 and game-one. The AKG 702 is going back to the shop, its just not fun to listen to at all. K612 'significantly' more bass. K612 also slightly more suited to my narrow head, slightly tighter clamp than the 702.
 
I might order the Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro and Sennheiser 598 and see how they compare to the K612 and game-one. So far I think the game-one provides the better musical experience! Although sometimes, and this may well be a 'track quality' issue, on youtube for example.
 
I cant stop listening to this performance on 'the voice' his voice is simply incredible!! (Ihope I dont get into trouble for going slightly off topic??) Sorry if you dont like bob!
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ1Oz6K4rOI

 

[Evshrug]

Yup, the K612 is definitely a power-hungry headphone... But feed it well and it will reward you! On the E5 (btw they're supposed to go on sale tomorrow, so you might want to ask about a price match), you might prefer high-gain mode. The K612 used a higher volume setting than the 600 ohm Beyerdynamic DT880 for me!

The description of SBX you wrote, where increasing the surround just increases the echo, seems to describe a settings issue where SBX is only receiving two channels... This might feel like a weird description, but just go with me: BF3 & 4 have a "headphone" and a "home theater" mode, "headphone" mode processes a headphone surround "mix" and creates a 2-channel result BEFORE the audio gets to a soundcard and before SBX can process it... and SBX surround just adds a bunch of undesirable reverb to 2-channel audio. The settings you want: in the Windows system sound panel, you need to check the 5.1/7.1 channel setting. Then, in the BF game, you actually want to choose the "Home Theater" setting to get max audio quality with least processing. Finally, your E5 should actually be receiving a surround input now. I recommend turning off everything but Surround till you get the hang of it, and try 67-100% setting on surround. The processing won't work right if you didn't have the right three settings: Windows 5.1/7.1, BF4 "Home Theater," and SBX surround.

And you should avoid volume dials on headphone cables if at all possible, any reduction from max there just adds resistance and muddies the sound detail... Just leave the headphone at max and have your PC start from a very low %... It's at like 20% for me. On my K612, it's a bit higher, but safer for your ears to start low

 

[mindbomb]

As someone who does play a lot of bf4 with similar headphones, I feel you must be doing something wrong if you find it sounding good without some type of headphone surround sound. There are a few things you need to make sure you do. First, there is a switch in the driver for speakers/headphones. Make sure it is set to headphones - this enables the headphone amp and it also sets sbx surround for headphones instead of speakers (the horrible echo on headphones often comes in speaker mode). Second, configure all software as if you had 5.1 speakers - battlefield 4 should be set to home cinema + surround, windows needs to be set to 5.1 and 24 bit, 48khz. Third, try to keep windows volume around 50% or lower so you have some protection against clipping - and since you are lowering volume digitally, this is why it is important to be in a 24 bit format, to maximize dynamic range.
 
It's very important to use virtual surround sound when gaming. Not only is it more immersive, but there is a competitive advantage as well in being able to distinguish between front and back. This is something you can't do without it, as you will only have left and right with stereo.

 

[theragekage]

Forgive my noobness, but I was wondering if someone could help me understand a little more about the G5. Assuming it is compatible with the XBONE, why would it be a better option than the mixamp? Wouldn't both of them be decoding Dolby anyway? Would the only advantage over the mixamp (for someone who is strictly an Xbox gamer) be a slightly better amp? 

 

[Sam21]

the difference is the DAC and AMP chips used in each unit, the E5 uses higher quality components.

 

[Change is Good]

Man, do I miss the K612.