[Mayor McCheese]

In an effort to find a 'late night' way of enjoying movies with my home theater, I decided to try out the Dolby Headphone processing using WinDVD on my laptop. Because I don't really have a quality set of headphones, I wasn't expecting much in the way of fidelity and bass response, but I figured that I could get a feel for the positional aspects of the technology. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case (I used selected scenes in Gladiator and Lord of the Rings to test). The "in your head" aspects of the headphones was definitely reduced, but I never got the feeling of being in a surround sound field.

Would this poor result come from my low quality headphones? Or is there something missing with WinDVD's implementation? I do have Dolby Headphones enabled, but that's about it as far as their options are concerned.

Before I spend money on a decent set I was hoping to get a taste for how well this technology could work. Right now, I'm leary of it.

I was also considering the Pioneer DIR-1000C- would this work better than WinDVD's software version of Dolby Headphone?

 

[JMedeiros]

Hi Mayor-

A number of us Headfiers have some experience with this. Here are links to some of our comments and reviews:

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...olby+headphone

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...olby+headphone

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...olby+headphone

 

[Mayor McCheese]

Thanks for the links.

I had read your review of the Pioneer and that's actually what got me interested in that. I was just hoping I could get a feel for how good Dolby Headphones can be before buying it.

I might try getting a decent pair this weekend and giving it another shot. It sounds like I would need better headphones than what come with the Pioneer anyway.

 

[JMedeiros]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mayor McCheese Thanks for the links. I had read your review of the Pioneer and that's actually what got me interested in that. I was just hoping I could get a feel for how good Dolby Headphones can be before buying it. I might try getting a decent pair this weekend and giving it another shot. It sounds like I would need better headphones than what come with the Pioneer anyway.

Yeah, most of have found we prefer others...I use the Sony CD3Ks..so does another guy and one of us enjoys the AT A900s with his.

BTW...welcome to Head-Fi...sorry about your wallet

John

 

[Matt]

...WinDVD (OH GOD I WANT MY MAC BACK!) and I have to say that I think the Dolby Headphone thing is just OK. Not great, certainly not mind-blowing, but it gets the voices out of your head.

One of the major problems for me is that everything sounds smeared around in a circle around you, like you are enclosed in two parenthesis marks of sound. I like to watch my Judy Garland Show DVD set, and I switch between Dolby headphone off (more detail, more emotion, but voices "in head" and relatively fatiguing that way) and Dolby headphone on (less fatigue, more open sound, some synthetic soundstaging, but with less detail and nuance, which is important when listening to Judy).

We have a proper home theater system (5.1 channels, Rotel amps, etc.) and that certainly spoils the PC version even more, because it sounds so much better with way better imaging, etc. The Dolby processor seems to do only the most rudimetary of processing, while smearing the hell out of the sound.

If I could only have one, I would stick with the detailed stereo playback and leave it at that, as overall you just miss too much from musical performances with the smoothed-over, detail-poor signal processing. You can't have your cake and eat it too, I guess.

- Matt

 

[JMedeiros]

Quote:

Originally posted by Matt [B If I could only have one, I would stick with the detailed stereo playback and leave it at that, as overall you just miss too much from musical performances with the smoothed-over, detail-poor signal processing. You can't have your cake and eat it too, I guess. - Matt [/B]

I agree with Matt on musical performances and older film material..I prefer two channel stereo or in the case of older films 2 channel mono.

But, for recent films encoded with DD 5.1 and DTS tracks, I really do enjoy the way my Pioneer Dolby Headphone processor recreates the sound field for me. That being said, if I could crank up my 5.1 home theater system after 8 pm without fear of lease-busting....I would. I recently re-calibrated my subwoofer and surrounds and replaced my tired old monster speaker wire with Signal speaker cables and its pretty rocking with movies. But, I still prefer 2 channel for my music listening.

 

[Matt]

...to my ears, it produces, as you say, a soundfield, however that field is diffuse and smeared. Lead vocals are distant and lose much of their texture. Smeared is the word for me. The change of fidelity is dramatic.

There is also all that crap in WinDVD and PowerDVD where you can "highlight dialogue" or add "TruBass" or other such schemes...you can sweeten up the sound, but it all seems further and further removed from real, unfiltered music.

To my ears, the Dolby headphone processing in software-based solutions is sorely lacking...surely they could do better.

- Matt

 

[maestro]

Quote:

Unfortunately, this wasn't the case (I used selected scenes in Gladiator

I would say you need to try it on a better pair of cans. I did the exact same thing using a pair of 590s out of an audigy and into a home theater receiver, then out to the headphones. The scenes in Gladiator were amazing, I thought the surround effect truly did a great job. If you want to just get the feel for Dolby Headphone, you might try the Pearl Harbor encoded track. There is also another version of T2 (Which really pisses me off, how many versions are they going to release, I just bought the last one) that has a Dolby Headphone track.

One of the drawbacks that I found annoying was how hollow or echoey the voices sounded. However, I have not done extensive testing like the other people here, and other than Pearl Harbor and Gladiator, my tests were on a poor pair of headphones as well.

 

[Mayor McCheese]

I tried to find a better pair of headphones this weekend. Unfortunately, the sets that most people on this forum recommend weren't available in the stores I checked. I probably need to use mail order to get them. Anyway, I ended up getting a set of HD570s. They are definitely an improvement- imaging and fidelity was much better, but bass was lacking. Of course, I really needed an amp to try them out because my laptop can't drive that impedance very well.

The surround feeling improved (I tried Star Wars Episode I and Band of Brothers this time), but I still prefer my HT. One thing I did like better was the intimate feeling the headphones give during the closeup foxhole scenes in BoB. That was something the HT doesn't convey as well. The shelling and firefights were sooo much better with the HT though. I guess there are some tradeoffs.

A friend of mine has the new T2 so I'll have to try that out. My receiver should be able to drive the headphones much better than my laptop

I'll definitely be returning the HD570s. They were overpriced where I bought them- if I'm going to be spending that much I'll get something better suited to watching movies.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to get the DIR-1000C. I'm tempted to buy it with the hope that I could unload it on Ebay if it doesn't work well enough for me. It's a constant struggle between the part of me that likes to buy new toys and the part that wants to be purely practical.

 

[darkclouds]

I've tried windvd dolby headphone and rather enjoyed it.

I thought the imaging was pretty good considering it was a pair of headphones (HD600). As Matt said, some details and transparencies are lost, but for me it was acceptable (for movies)and definitely made the movies more enjoyable.