[Lambduh]

So I recently moved from astro gear with an auzentech prelude to a xonar stx and pc360. The sound is less thrilling I would say, as the explosions have less punch. It still is an upgrade though, because the bass I feel is more accurately produced with this combo and I can hear footsteps in cs:go from farther away than anyone else seems to be able to.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

So I recently moved from Astro gear with an Auzentech prelude to a Xonar STX and pc360. The sound is less thrilling I would say, as the explosions have less punch. It still is an upgrade though, because the bass I feel is more accurately produced with this combo and I can hear footsteps in cs:go from farther away than anyone else seems to be able to.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

What setting are you using in the Xonar Control Panel?
Try the Brainbit third party "Unified Xonar Drivers", at the Brainbit website.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

I see. Does "Play Stereo Mix using Digital Output" add any latency like the stereo mix in windows?

 
I don't notice any latency...but that's not the same as knowing there's absolutely no latency. I'm not sure how to properly test for it, other than "make sure gunshots sound off exactly when I pull the trigger", and that's hardly a flawless testing method.

 

[ultron]

You can try this http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Latency_Test

I just tried it out with a headset mic listening to my headphones.
Realtek headphone out = 200ms
Realtek headpohne out with X-fi MB2 CMSS3DH on = 250ms
uDac via Stereo Mix = 315ms
uDac via Stereo Mix with  X-fi MB2 CMSS3DH on = 365ms
uDac alone = 175ms

So stereo mix is adding 90ms for me, and CMSS3DH adds 50ms... No wonder it felt so laggy.

Edit: Realized different sources probably had different latencies so redid it.

 

[VN1X]

Hey all,
 
Short time lurker, first time poster!
 
So after doing some reading on the subject (mostly on these forums) I figured, why not join up and get a more specific answer for myself. With that being said, this has probably been asked a bunch of times before so bare with me sirs!
 
As I said I've been reading up on quite a few headphones on Head-Fi. I've already learned more than I wanted to lol and it seems my wallet isn't going to like me very much but alas, I want excellent sound quality. Some advice already given to other members include: A: I need a proper sound card with built-in amp and B: I need a card that powers a pair of 250ohm headphones (such as the  Beyerdynamic 990 pro or the Sennheiser HD595).
 
I'm not exactly an audiophile but definitely recognize great sound when I hear it. I'm mainly in it for gaming purposes but I suppose with the following setup I can get best of both worlds?
 
I'd like to get the following:
- ASUS Xonar Essence STX 
- Beyerdynamic 990 pro  
OR
 
- ASUS Xonar Essence STX 
- Sennheiser HD 595
 
It seems these two headphones are all the rave when it comes to gaming and have been recommended by a number of members so far. 
 
Will these provide their respective 'bang for buck' and will I hear Battlefield 3 like never before? 
 
I'm currently rocking the Sennheiser HD515 (without a dedicated sound card). I thought about getting the ASUS Xonar DGX along with a '5.1 gaming headset (mic included) but after doing some 'research' I might as well go all out and get some proper gear. 
 
PS I listen to all kinds of music but predominantly Metal. Just thought I'd mention that as well.
 
EDIT: On other forums I've read that this sound card isn't what one would get when you're in need of full-on surround sound? Is this true? 

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Hey all,
Short time lurker, first time poster!
So after doing some reading on the subject (mostly on these forums) I figured, why not join up and get a more specific answer for myself. With that being said, this has probably been asked a bunch of times before so bare with me sirs!
As I said I've been reading up on quite a few headphones on Head-Fi. I've already learned more than I wanted to lol and it seems my wallet isn't going to like me very much but alas, I want excellent sound quality. Some advice already given to other members include: A: I need a proper sound card with built-in amp and B: I need a card that powers a pair of 250ohm headphones (such as the  Beyerdynamic 990 pro or the Sennheiser HD595).
I'm not exactly an audiophile but definitely recognize great sound when I hear it. I'm mainly in it for gaming purposes but I suppose with the following setup I can get best of both worlds?
I'd like to get the following:
- ASUS Xonar Essence STX 
- Beyerdynamic 990 pro  
OR
- ASUS Xonar Essence STX 
- Sennheiser HD 595
It seems these two headphones are all the rave when it comes to gaming and have been recommended by a number of members so far. 
Will these provide their respective 'bang for buck' and will I hear Battlefield 3 like never before? 
I'm currently rocking the Sennheiser HD515 (without a dedicated sound card). I thought about getting the ASUS Xonar DGX along with a '5.1 gaming headset (mic included) but after doing some 'research' I might as well go all out and get some proper gear. 
PS I listen to all kinds of music but predominantly Metal. Just thought I'd mention that as well.
EDIT: On other forums I've read that this sound card isn't what one would get when you're in need of full-on surround sound? Is this true? 

The Titanium HD is the leading gaming card, the Essence STX is more of a movie and headphone amplifier card, that does gaming.
Music and audio quality wise there close to equal.
I'm a Essence STX user myself.
I would say to get the DT990 Pro 250-ohm (full bass, full treble, nice sound stage, clear vocals), gamers seem to like it and it's great for movies.

 

[Lambduh]

Quote:

What setting are you using in the Xonar Control Panel?
Try the Brainbit third party "Unified Xonar Drivers", at the Brainbit website.

Yeah I have those installed. The eq seems wonky though...maybe because I chose the cmedia panel install too? I will try a reinstall. With the eq currently changing anything makes sound get super quiet.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[Phos]

So the recent indie game "Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers" uses OpenAL.  It has OpenAL32.dll in its folder, and for some reason it also has "wrap_oal.dll".  Not sure why a game that just came out would have that.  Does he think people are going to be running this on XP?  It basically does the opposite of ALchemy, If I wanted to I could use ALchemy to wrap the Directsound wrapper and overall make a mess of things.  I wonder if I could point these wrappers at each other and send them in a loop?  
Quote:

I see. Does "Play Stereo Mix using Digital Output" add any latency like the stereo mix in windows?

Edit: That's odd.. sure firefox remembers the info for my old lurker account now.  ridill=ultron.

There's no latency, I compared it to analog out by connecting speakers to the analog out and headphones to a DAC via toslink and it matched up perfectly.  Didn't even realize there were two sources for a moment. 

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

So the recent indie game "Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers" uses OpenAL.  It has OpenAL32.dll in its folder, and for some reason it also has "wrap_oal.dll".  Not sure why a game that just came out would have that.  Does he think people are going to be running this on XP?  It basically does the opposite of ALchemy, If I wanted to I could use ALchemy to wrap the Directsound wrapper and overall make a mess of things.  I wonder if I could point these wrappers at each other and send them in a loop? 

 
So it's not just the Java-based indie games like Minecraft and 3079 using OpenAL...though A New Zero isn't Java-based, either. Makes me wonder why the indies don't have any issues with onerous Creative licensing just to use OpenAL (meaning the barrier to entry is low), but all those "AAA" blockbuster game development studios insist on using XAudio2 + X3DAudio or FMOD Ex, with inferior results. I just don't get it.
 
Have you tried renaming/removing one or both of those files (after backing them up, of course) to find out what happens? The difference between properly-working DirectSound3D or OpenAL and anything else is pretty obvious to me with CMSS-3D Headphone on.

 

[Phos]

It'll probably just fall back to the .dll's in my windows folder.  
 
I don't think there are any licensing fees, just that most developers don't work with OpenGL like API's, most nowadays are making games with middleware and the middleware uses audio middleware that isn't as good.  It doesn't help that it's hard to sell a game based on sound.  

 

[0sync0]

I'm thinking of getting a Xonar DG to try out Dolby Headphone. But first I'm curious to see which of my games actually output surround sound. Is there some way to tell without researching each game?

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

I'm thinking of getting a Xonar DG to try out Dolby Headphone. But first I'm curious to see which of my games actually output surround sound. Is there some way to tell without researching each game?

 
PC games have been doing surround sound since the late 1990s, largely thanks to the 3D sound revolution Aureal started back then with A3D. You'd be harder-pressed to find a 3D PC game these days that doesn't support surround sound in some fashion because of that.
 
The only catch is that for the really old DirectSound3D-based stuff, you need to enable DS3DGX first to get any semblance of surround sound (and EAX support, but that's a separate issue).
 
Generally speaking, though, I wouldn't expect anything without a first/third-person view to really bother with surround sound due to how front/rear positional audio cues don't really work out so well with overhead views.

 

[0sync0]

I was originally planning on getting a USB surround headset. Then I did some research here and learned about using a separate surround processor and headphones. I liked the idea of having flexibility in which cans to use.
 
Then I read this in another thread here:
 
Quote:

As far as advice for/against Dolby Headphone through a USB headset or a soundcard with Dolby (or other positional simulator), HRTFs are extremely complex to do correctly, and generally work best when exactly matched to the response curve of the headset and even the axis of the driver relative to the ear cup. This means that *most* people get positional audio cues better from a USB headset because the audio engineers can design the entire system to produce the closest representation of the HRTF.

 
That makes sense to me and now I'm thinking of a USB headset again.

 

[NamelessPFG]

I'm a bit skeptical of that.
 
Yes, HRTFs are difficult to do correctly when every human head has a unique HRTF, but I have my doubts that a cheap headset with cheap drivers (like most gaming headsets) and a specially-tailored HRTF is going to win out over an audiophile headphone with quality drivers and a generic HRTF.
 
Also, several headsets such as the Logitech G35 and G930 just use Dolby Headphone, not even a proprietary binaural HRTF tech. This does raise the question of whether it's better to design the headphone around the HRTF, or the other way around...but if that were the case, people wouldn't be dumping their Tritton AX720s and Astro A40s (which you think would be designed around Dolby Headphone), keeping the decoder boxes/Mixamps that do the DH processing, and using better headphones. In other words, Mad Lust Envy's thread simply wouldn't exist.
 
Ideally, the HRTF itself needs to be fully adjustable across different sets of headphones and human heads. Currently, the only one that I know of that is flawless in this regard is Smyth's SVS (as featured in their Realiser), and that's because it takes recordings from earbud microphones in the user's ears while playing test tones through all the speakers in a typical 7.1 theater system, then calibrating the response from the user's headphones of choice compared to what the earbuds in their ears actually hear.

 

[Phos]

Quote:

I'm a bit skeptical of that.
 
Yes, HRTFs are difficult to do correctly when every human head has a unique HRTF, but I have my doubts that a cheap headset with cheap drivers (like most gaming headsets) and a specially-tailored HRTF is going to win out over an audiophile headphone with quality drivers and a generic HRTF.
 
Also, several headsets such as the Logitech G35 and G930 just use Dolby Headphone, not even a proprietary binaural HRTF tech. This does raise the question of whether it's better to design the headphone around the HRTF, or the other way around...but if that were the case, people wouldn't be dumping their Tritton AX720s and Astro A40s (which you think would be designed around Dolby Headphone), keeping the decoder boxes/Mixamps that do the DH processing, and using better headphones. In other words, Mad Lust Envy's thread simply wouldn't exist.
 
Ideally, the HRTF itself needs to be fully adjustable across different sets of headphones and human heads. Currently, the only one that I know of that is flawless in this regard is Smyth's SVS (as featured in their Realiser), and that's because it takes recordings from earbud microphones in the user's ears while playing test tones through all the speakers in a typical 7.1 theater system, then calibrating the response from the user's headphones of choice compared to what the earbuds in their ears actually hear.

The idea way would be to just make an HRTF profile using this technology and 3 pictures of the individual and then calibrating the the specific headphone the same way the realiser does it.