[dmbr]

Why would you want to use the Razer Surround sound together with the OOYH software? the OOYH is much better surround sound.  

I'd rather use OOYH exclusively, but uninstalling Razer Surround prevents OOYH from working

 

[jincuteguy]

I'd rather use OOYH exclusively, but uninstalling Razer Surround prevents OOYH from working

What sound card or DAC / Amp  are you using? Like your main sound audio driver? Creative soundcard? RealTek Onboard sound? or what?

 

[dmbr]

What sound card or DAC / Amp  are you using? Like your main sound audio driver? Creative soundcard? RealTek Onboard sound? or what?

I'm using an Asus Xonar Essence One (Muses Edition) for a DAC.

 

[darinf]

Make any discoveries, Darin?

The fix mysteriously stopped working

selecting the E1 DAC in the OOYH control panel now gives distorted audio, and selecting Razer Surround gives no sound.

Hi @dmbr 
Sorry about not getting back to you.
 
FYI, I did try installing Razer Surround on my Windows 8.1 machine. When their driver installs, it does seem to permanently "hook" the defualt audio playback device in Windows, so when you run Out Of Your Head, Out Of Your Head will report that that output device in in use by another program, which it is. I was not able to figure out how to get Razer Surround to "release" the Playback Device even if Razer Synapse was not running. I was able to get it to switch to another device and "release" the first device by plugging in headphones into the built-in headphone jack. Razer then hooked the built-in audio device instead of the previous playback device and released it so the previous playback device started working with Out Of Your Head.
 
However, I then uninstalled Razer Surround using Windows "Programs and Features". Then I uninstalled Razer Synapse. Then I rebooted.
 
Once I did that, the Razer Surround device was gone as was all the Razer software.
 
Out Of Your Head then worked perfectly with all the audio output devices.
 
So, I am not sure if you tried completely uninstalling Razer Surround, but if you did, then Out Of Your Head should work again. 
However, you definitely have to make sure the Razer Surround virtual audio device does not appear in the Windows Device Manager.
 
Also, this test was done on Windows 8.1. I think you are running Windows 7, which may yield different results.
 
So I recommend completely uninstalling Razer Surround, and then we can see about getting Out Of Your Head working again. (If you do use Razer Surround and don't want to uninstall it, let me know and we can figure out a fix.)
 
-Darin

 

[fluidz]

Tried this with he-500 headphones in Dying Light, I heard a surround effect but dynamics were too flat and visualising of sounds in games were all too distant. I found it difficult to grasp if I was standing next to an enemy or if it was 100 metres away. Would be a great effect to add ambience to a game but on its own it falls short on replicating how things sound in real life.
Sticking to Cmss-3d.

 

[darinf]

Tried this with he-500 headphones in Dying Light, I heard a surround effect but dynamics were too flat and visualising of sounds in games were all too distant. I found it difficult to grasp if I was standing next to an enemy or if it was 100 metres away. Would be a great effect to add ambience to a game but on its own it falls short on replicating how things sound in real life.
Sticking to Cmss-3d.

Hi @fluidz
Thanks for trying Out Of Your Head and posting your impressions.
 
Just curious which speaker presets you were using?
 
I agree that some of the speaker presets intended for listening to music are generally in fairly reverberant rooms. 
 
For those people looking for a sound with less reverberant rooms, the recording studio or home theater preset environments would work best since they tend to have more acoustically treated, better damped rooms.
 
Secondly, with regards to "realism", there's a subtle distinction about what's possible with Out Of Your Head. We do not claim that Out Of Your Head will recreate real-life sound in a virtual world. Out Of Your Head is meant to replicate the sound of a real room with real speakers. So you should hear the sound, in a game for example, as if you were playing that game while sitting in a home theater or recording studio with 8 speakers in the room. If you were to do that, you would hear the "sound" of the room you are sitting in and the distance of the speakers from your location. Therefore, a sound source cannot sound like it's coming from any closer that the nearest speaker is from you listening position. Does playing a game in a 7.1 home theater system sound like "real-life"? I guess it could but it depends on the game too. But I can assure you that the sound you hear in Out Of Your Head is the same sound you would hear if you were in a room with 7.1 speakers.
 
However, with Out Of Your Head, people often expect a 3D audio only experience where the sounds are not coming from speakers, but generated and positioned in 3D space with no room interactions or wall reflections, etc. Unfortunately, that is not what Out Of Your Head is doing. Out Of Your Head is replicating the sound as if you were sitting in a real room with real speakers. I think very few people have done any gaming on a real 7.1 speaker system, or if they have, don't expect the sound to be completely 3D, but understand that the sound is coming from 8 speakers in the room and expect to hear room reflections and the sound coming from several feet away from the speakers.
But when you're wearing headphones, people expect the sound to come from anywhere.
 
There are technologies that use computer algorithms to position audio sources in 3D space, with some success. But we felt that the compromise in the overall sound quality was too great. We designed our software for audiophiles and audio enthusiasts who wanted high quality audio first and foremost. That's why we felt accurately replicating the sound of real rooms with real speakers through measurement was the best way to preserve the high end sound of great speakers.
 
I hope this explains a little about what we do and maybe helps people understand why they hear what they hear when listening to Out Of Your Head.

 

[jincuteguy]

Tried this with he-500 headphones in Dying Light, I heard a surround effect but dynamics were too flat and visualising of sounds in games were all too distant. I found it difficult to grasp if I was standing next to an enemy or if it was 100 metres away. Would be a great effect to add ambience to a game but on its own it falls short on replicating how things sound in real life.
Sticking to Cmss-3d.

 
You need to try out other Preset, some preset sound really thin and sucks.  But some sound really amazing, you just have to go through each Preset and get the good ones.  CMSS-3D is no match for this OutOfYourHead software.

 

[soneca]

Sorry if this has been addressed. Have been wondering if it works with an external DAC that requires ASIO software? Read in earlier posts that it wouldn't work. Thus not allowing for better digital to analogue converting and amplification? Which kinda defeats the purpose of trying to achieve the best sound quality as possible, or to your preference.

 

[darinf]

Sorry if this has been addressed. Have been wondering if it works with an external DAC that requires ASIO software? Read in earlier posts that it wouldn't work. Thus not allowing for better digital to analogue converting and amplification? Which kinda defeats the purpose of trying to achieve the best sound quality as possible, or to your preference.

Hi @soneca ,
 
Currently we support devices which appear as Windows sound playback devices. So if your DAC only has ASIO mode and does not appear as a Windows sound playback device, then it's not supported by Out Of Your Head.
Most Windows USB DACs have Windows drivers.
(For sound output, we do not use DirectSound. We use WASAPI Kernel mode.)
 
Which DAC are you using that only supports ASIO?
 
-Darin

 

[jincuteguy]

How come Out of Your Head software doesnt' work with Creative G5? And the number in the lower left corner keep going up? but there's no sound.

 

[darinf]

  How come Out of Your Head software doesnt' work with Creative G5? And the number in the lower left corner keep going up? but there's no sound.

Sorry about not getting back to you @jincuteguy ,
 
I need to e-mail you back with some things to try. I apologize for the delay.
 
If the numbers in the lower corner of the Out Of Your Head Control Panel count up continuously, then you will not get any sound, as you have found. But the fix is not always the same on all systems.
 
-Darin

 

[soneca]

Hi darinf

I'm currently using BMC Puredac. Unfortunately it requires ASIO software. But I thought most DACs will require some form of software for windows.

 

[darinf]

Hi @darinf

I'm currently using BMC Puredac. Unfortunately it requires ASIO software. But I thought most DACs will require some form of software for windows.

Hi @soneca ,
According to the BMC Puredac manual, they do offer a Windows driver. Their driver is that same as many other USB DACs. They use the "TUSBAudio" driver. It also installs an ASIO driver. I have used many DACs that use the TUSBAudio driver without any problems with Out Of Your Head.
 
Please download or install their Windows driver.
 
Here's the excerpt from page 8 of their user manual:

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)]PureDAC with Windows OS[/color]
Microsoft has not followed the USB 2.0 audio protocol and therefore to use the PureDAC with Windows a driver installation is required. The driver is on the enlosed disk named TUSBAudio.  This driver is known to work with Windows Vista, 7 and 8 and allows the PureDAC to be an operating system’s external sound device.The driver also installs an ASIO interface which allows direct access the PureDAC .  It is the best choice for bit-perfect playback. A recommended player software that works very well with ASIO is the JRiver Media Center. A demo is on the enclosed CD-ROM and there is also an ASIO plug-in for the Windows Media Player.Microsoft’s own WASAPI interface works with PureDAC but ASIO is recommended for best results.As available software changes  frequently please consult our on-line information at www.bmc-audio.com

Let me know if you have any trouble getting your DAC to work with Out Of Your Head.

 

[soneca]

Ohh! Alright I'll give it a try when I get back home. Thanks a lot!

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Hey there, so I was sent a trial for this, and I gotta say, I'm quite impressed with some of the presets. I'm a huge virtual surround gamer (Having used Dolby headphone devices, Creative Tru Studio, Creative SBX, Beyerdynamic Headzone, Razer Surround etc).

The OOYH software has some truly comparable presets (though I feel the default preset isn't convincing enough, so you'd have to find a better one).

Some presets are pretty lackluster, and don't seem to do 7.1 emulation well at all, and some others do them just as good as any I've heard.

There are kinks in the software (for some reason I can't easily adjust volume on the output device unless I specifically go into the sound devices and adjust the slider window, which is a huge hassle). Raising or lowering the OOYH volume utself doesn't do anything, outside of mute.

I do wish the preset trials where at least 4 hours or something. I understand it's a trial, but having to pay for a preset you can only test for 2 minutes is absurd to me. Yes, I know I can just re-toggle, but Christ, it's hard to test games if I have to alt-tab every minute or so just refresh the trial.

Also, been told this doesn't work with the Creative X7 for some reason, which is a shame. I would've liked to A-B compare the presets with SBX.