[Jiggerjuice]

I have an Onkyo HT-R510 receiver. It has speakers plugged in at 6.1 surround. It has speaker-mode surround sound modes, but when I plug my headphones in, I can only seem to find two headphone modes - Direct and Stereo, both of which seem to be in PCM mode. I don't really even know what PCM mode means. I'm assuming stereo is just left/right channels, but don't know what Direct means - Onkyo user manual doesn't really help in explaining. 
 
Receiver is connected via my motherboard Realtek optical out, so TOSlink I guess. The optical output has what feels like a plastic tube that moves digital to the receiver. So the receiver must have a DAC otherwise I couldn't possibly get stereo analog... 
 
So... if Direct means direct optical from the source, does that mean I need a... Dobly 3d something or another plugged in inbetween my receiver and my headphones? 
 
Or how do I get my receiver to output 3d surround in 5.1/6.1 into my headphones? Would it have to be via the motherboard itself, meaning some Realtek drivers that support 3d? Or would getting a soundcard that optical outs into the receiver give me 3d sound in Direct mode? 
 
So many confusing things... All I want to do is spank face in BF4. Right now it's just a huge mountain of sound with no directionality at all. 

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I have an Onkyo HT-R510 receiver. It has speakers plugged in at 6.1 surround. It has speaker-mode surround sound modes, but when I plug my headphones in, I can only seem to find two headphone modes - Direct and Stereo, both of which seem to be in PCM mode. I don't really even know what PCM mode means. I'm assuming stereo is just left/right channels, but don't know what Direct means - Onkyo user manual doesn't really help in explaining. 
 
Receiver is connected via my motherboard Realtek optical out, so TOSlink I guess. The optical output has what feels like a plastic tube that moves digital to the receiver. So the receiver must have a DAC otherwise I couldn't possibly get stereo analog... 
 
So... if Direct means direct optical from the source, does that mean I need a... Dobly 3d something or another plugged in inbetween my receiver and my headphones? 
 
Or how do I get my receiver to output 3d surround in 5.1/6.1 into my headphones? Would it have to be via the motherboard itself, meaning some Realtek drivers that support 3d? Or would getting a soundcard that optical outs into the receiver give me 3d sound in Direct mode? 
 
So many confusing things... All I want to do is spank face in BF4. Right now it's just a huge mountain of sound with no directionality at all. 

 
PCM I guess is standard music audio, PCM is also uncompressed audio.
The Onkyo itself does not provide any headphone surround sound, on it's own.
So if you had a PC sound card that can process headphone surround sound, then send it thru the optical port to the Onkyo, then the Onkyo can send that preprocessed headphone surround sound out it's headphone jack.

 

[Jiggerjuice]

So functionally, all I would need is *any* sound card that does... 3DCMSS or Dolby or whatever. Card processes 3d sound, pumped to my receiver via optical, which then in turn decodes with its own DAC, and sends signal to my headphones... So pretty much any budget sound card then, since I don't need any of the fancy additionals. 
 
Realtek doesn't have 3d drivers at all for my on-board? Maybe they can't license anything cool like that with a mfg cost of 4 bucks a pop. 
 
I guess this may have been answered elsewhere, but are receiver headphone jacks any good? Q701 has what, 62 ohm resistance or what have you... I don't see any specs related to the headphone jack for the HT-R510 anywhere. I suppose it's far too old to actually find a spec sheet on. I keep reading everywhere the AKG needs amps, would a receiver be ok or would I be better off with Soundblaster with headphone amp built in... Trying to keep expenditure on this to a minimum, but will do what is necessary to drive the AKG properly.