[bigshot]

Yeah this headphone surround processors really aren't surround in the sense of a true surround speaker setup. If you like the effect, use it. If not, don't. Some folk worry about "accuracy" but that should just be a starting point. Once you have accurate sound reproduction, you can experiment with alternate ways that might sound better to you. It's a free country!

 

[jason41987]

Well, it does change the imaging noticeably. Without the surround sound, the perceived direction of audio is much more focused. And with surround sound on it becomes more vague. I was using my Samson Q2U mic as an audio output device for monitoring while recording a gameplay video and noticed I could accurately pinpoint exact locations of sounds, better than I could with the surround sound adapter.

 

[jason41987]

So here's a question. Since DD uses basically a crosstalk filter with a delay to simulate a sound wave bouncing off an opposing wall and into the opposite ear, vs the typically sterile headphone audio you get on account of one ear only able to hear one speaker, would eliminating signal crosstalk via balancing benefit or hurt the system? I've been wondering if I could buy a second DD surround sound adapter and reverse its polarity while feeding both the same signal and then wiring both outputs into a single balanced output that could then be fed into a balanced amp. But I am wondering how much DD would benefit from that.

 

[bigshot]

Crosstalk is what makes it work. If you don't like the effect, just turn it off.

Sound location involves more than just channel separation between the ears or reflections. We use vision and moving our head to locate sounds in space as well. Headphones will never be able to simulate those things. They can just make the sound a little fuller sounding with crossfeed.

 

[jason41987]

I think you have the crosstalk of the DD which simulates audio bouncing off of walls or being heard by the opposite ear, and then there's crosstalk with the signal. I think DD would still benefit from balancing because it'll eliminate noise/signal crosstalk and likely make the DD seem even clearer. But that is a project for a later day.

 

[castleofargh]

I think you have the crosstalk of the DD which simulates audio bouncing off of walls or being heard by the opposite ear, and then there's crosstalk with the signal. I think DD would still benefit from balancing because it'll eliminate noise/signal crosstalk and likely make the DD seem even clearer. But that is a project for a later day.

you have to separate crosstalk and some concept of crossfeed(one side bounced to the other but with a delay and some changes to simulate HRTF impacts).
crosstalk is really very hard to perceive when below -40dB(at least it is for me). something so bad doesn't usually come out of an audio device. so I'm guessing you're talking about something similar to crossfeed and a balanced system wouldn't do anything for that as it's the DSP doing it.

 

[jason41987]

So THAT is what it is called. I found some crossfeed sound demos on youtube that have the effect on, and off in pre-encoded audio tracks and I listened to it with the DD adapter turned off and yeah, the sound was very similar and the part of the DD I like. So, it would seem what I have in the DD adapter is a crossfeed DAC essentially. I was looking at headphone amps with crossfeed circuits but they are all up in the $500 mark. So if nothing else, the Dolby offers me a cheaper solution into crossfeed.

I found some simple circuit diagrams that would allow crossfeed to be implemented into existing amplifiers, and you could of course wire in a toggle to bypass that circuit to the output. If I pick up something like a JDS labs Atom amplifier which has the extra space inside, I may just modify it to implement crossfeed myself.

 

[bigshot]

But any of that is going to alter the sound location. You just decide what's important to you and go with that I guess.