[chinois]

Hi all,
 
I am also in the process of searching for an AV receiver to hook up with my PS3 for gaming and movie using a headphone (probably AKG Q701).  Yamaha interests me but my concern is whether Silence Cinema can reproduce the surround effect like I have with my Asus D1 soundcard does with its dolby headphone surround.
 
Compare to Astro MixAmp which is a lot cheaper than a Yamaha AVR, is the price justified for the reproduction of surround sound through the headphone?
 
Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

I am also in the process of searching for an AV receiver to hook up with my PS3 for gaming and movie using a headphone (probably AKG Q701).  Yamaha interests me but my concern is whether Silence Cinema can reproduce the surround effect like I have with my Asus D1 soundcard does with its dolby headphone surround.
Compare to Astro MixAmp which is a lot cheaper than a Yamaha AVR, is the price justified for the reproduction of surround sound through the headphone?
Thanks for sharing your experience.

I would "guess", unless you have need of a receiver for speakers, might as well just get the Astro Mix-Amp.

 

[chinois]

Thanks PurpleAngel, I think I will probably go down that route but it is always out of stock in EU.

 

[xcrok]

Figured I'd throw some info in here - just messaged Yamaha tech support asking what changes Silent Cinema has been through over the years. He replied that it has not changed at all in 10+ years... BUT I know for a fact that using using DSP with Silent Cinema was something added for the 671 and later models, and EQing it was added sometime as well, and a bunch of other features tying in with it. So maybe he was just referencing the HRTF modeling algorithm hasn't changed.

Anyway - have a Denon 1712 that I'm now upgrading to a 671. Denon's "Virtual Headphone" mode was actually....pretty good. Apparently Denon and a few other receiver companies all used to use Dolby Headphone, but Dolby wanted more and more money from the receiver manufacturers, so they figured "Eh we can make this ourselves, and make it better". Hence why Pioneer has their own, HK has their own, etc. So I'm hoping the Yamaha sounds even better. Hopefully have some people over this weekend so I can AB test them both and see what everyone prefers.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

Figured I'd throw some info in here - just messaged Yamaha tech support asking what changes Silent Cinema has been through over the years. He replied that it has not changed at all in 10+ years... BUT I know for a fact that using using DSP with Silent Cinema was something added for the 671 and later models, and EQing it was added sometime as well, and a bunch of other features tying in with it. So maybe he was just referencing the HRTF modeling algorithm hasn't changed.

Anyway - have a Denon 1712 that I'm now upgrading to a 671. Denon's "Virtual Headphone" mode was actually....pretty good. Apparently Denon and a few other receiver companies all used to use Dolby Headphone, but Dolby wanted more and more money from the receiver manufacturers, so they figured "Eh we can make this ourselves, and make it better". Hence why Pioneer has their own, HK has their own, etc. So I'm hoping the Yamaha sounds even better. Hopefully have some people over this weekend so I can AB test them both and see what everyone prefers.

I believe the HK headphone feature is a fake surround sound.
A 2-channel signal is modified to sound like surround sound, something like "Expanded stereo".
It use to be used in HK's car audio.
 
Please post the resultes of your testing.

 

[Voltmod]

I am reviving this thread as I think it's a good bit of information and have some questions.

Just got new headphones and tried them out with halo reach on 360. I have Xbox settings to Dolby 5.1 and Yamaha receiver says silent cinema with 5.1 speaker config lit up.

What does LFE mean when headphones are plugged in?

Can you use straight Dolby surround on the receiver without silent cinema?

I wasn't too impressed with the surround but I've only tried reach... Maybe it differs for games?

 

[PurpleAngel]

I am reviving this thread as I think it's a good bit of information and have some questions.
Just got new headphones and tried them out with halo reach on 360. I have Xbox settings to Dolby 5.1 and Yamaha receiver says silent cinema with 5.1 speaker config lit up.
What does LFE mean when headphones are plugged in?
Can you use straight Dolby surround on the receiver without silent cinema?
I wasn't too impressed with the surround but I've only tried reach... Maybe it differs for games?

 
Are you connecting the xBox 360 connected to the Yamaha receiver using optical or HDMI?
If connected using HDMI, then you do not want to enable Dolby on the Xbox, the HDMI cable will carry the 6-channel digital audio to the Yamaha, and the Yamaha will then apply any audio processing it thinks it's required to, like Silent Cinema.
If connected using optical, then you would want Dolby enable, so as to be able to send 6-channels (5.1) of compressed audio thru the optical cable.
Once the compressed signal is received by the Yamaha, it will uncompress it and apply it own Silent Cinema headphone surround sound to the audio signal, as the Yamaha does not come with any  "Dolby Headphone".
LFE referees to the sub-woofer audio signal, it's the ".1" of the 5.1
The Yamaha will use Dolby processing features, but only for speakers, as the Yamaha uses Silent Cinema for headphones.

 

[Voltmod]

   
Are you connecting the xBox 360 connected to the Yamaha receiver using optical or HDMI?
If connected using HDMI, then you do not want to enable Dolby on the Xbox, the HDMI cable will carry the 6-channel digital audio to the Yamaha, and the Yamaha will then apply any audio processing it thinks it's required to, like Silent Cinema.
If connected using optical, then you would want Dolby enable, so as to be able to send 6-channels (5.1) of compressed audio thru the optical cable.
Once the compressed signal is received by the Yamaha, it will uncompress it and apply it own Silent Cinema headphone surround sound to the audio signal, as the Yamaha does not come with any  "Dolby Headphone".
LFE referees to the sub-woofer audio signal, it's the ".1" of the 5.1
The Yamaha will use Dolby processing features, but only for speakers, as the Yamaha uses Silent Cinema for headphones.

I'm connected via optical. I thought about HDMI, but my receiver was about $200, and I've heard receivers need to be pretty nice to pass through HDMI without latency. I could try it out though.
 
The Dolby icon is lit up when connected via optical with headphones plugged in. It also says Silent Cinema, but the dolby icon is lit up... So it's not using Dolby at all this way even though the icon is lit up?
 
Sounds like I have everything setup correctly though; I will just try some different games tonight. There's definitely directional audio, but I thought it would be... wider. I just got my X1s though, so maybe they need to open up more before the soundstage is more noticeable in games.

 

[PurpleAngel]

 
I'm connected via optical. I thought about HDMI, but my receiver was about $200, and I've heard receivers need to be pretty nice to pass through HDMI without latency. I could try it out though.
 
The Dolby icon is lit up when connected via optical with headphones plugged in. It also says Silent Cinema, but the Dolby icon is lit up... So it's not using Dolby at all this way even though the icon is lit up?
 
Sounds like I have everything setup correctly though; I will just try some different games tonight. There's definitely directional audio, but I thought it would be... wider. I just got my X1s though, so maybe they need to open up more before the sound stage is more noticeable in games.

 
Never heard that using low cost receivers have high HDMI latency (but i'll try reading up on that topic).
I would say to use the HDMI, it does not have to use compression for passing (up to 8-channels) digital audio.
I would assume with S/PDIF (optical & coaxial), compressing and uncompressing can add latency.
 
The gaming console uses DDL (Dolby Digital Live) to compress up to 6-channels of digital audio before it sends it thru the optical cable.
The Yamaha receiver uses DDL to uncompress the digital audio coming thru the optical cable.
I'm guessing the uncompressing is why the "Dolby" is lit up.
Without the use of compressing, S/PDIF optical (& coaxial) can only pass two channels of digital audio.

 

[Voltmod]

   
Never heard that using low cost receivers have high HDMI latency (but i'll try reading up on that topic).
I would say to use the HDMI, it does not have to use compression for passing (up to 8-channels) digital audio.
I would assume with S/PDIF (optical & coaxial), compressing and uncompressing can add latency.
 
The gaming console uses DDL (Dolby Digital Live) to compress up to 6-channels of digital audio before it sends it thru the optical cable.
The Yamaha receiver uses DDL to uncompress the digital audio coming thru the optical cable.
I'm guessing the uncompressing is why the "Dolby" is lit up.
Without the use of compressing, S/PDIF optical (& coaxial) can only pass two channels of digital audio.

Gotcha. Yes two of my friend's dad's have had issues with their receivers and latency while passing HDMI through.
 
I will try the HDMI tonight and see what happens. I'm starting to wonder if these surround technologies are even worth the hastle... seems like a lot of configuring, especially on PC. Some games have weird support, must do workarounds in control panel & game configs, etc. I may just get a Magni for my desktop, in which case I'd compare consoles RCA > Magni > Headphones vs receiver.

 

[Voltmod]

I tested Silent Cinema the other day via optical cable. Still yet to try HDMI but don't think I will; receiver was cheap and I like the idea of 360 > TV and 360 > receiver for more direct connections and less room for trouble.
 
Anyway I think Silent Cinema sounds terrible, and I can still use dolby + 5.1 setup with headphones in "straight" mode. I still get surround through headphones that way and without the dry airiness of Silent Cinema. 

 

[benjitb]

Just got AKG K 612 pro today & trying them out with my Yamaha "silent  cinema". (Yamaha rxv 475)
 
What setting does everyone here use for games or movies?

 

[Franchot]

  Just got AKG K 612 pro today & trying them out with my Yamaha "silent  cinema". (Yamaha rxv 475)
 
What setting does everyone here use for games or movies?

When I first got my Yamaha, I fiddled around with the different sound fields because it was new and fun.  I eventually ended up just using "Straight" as that sounded the most natural and closest to the way that the movie's soundtrack had been originally mixed.

 

[imeem]

(don't mean to bump the thread but it's related)
 
has any1 tried comparing silent cinema and razer surround for PC gaming to see which one is better? 

 

[PurpleAngel]

  (don't mean to bump the thread but it's related)
 
Has any1 tried comparing Silent Cinema and Razer surround for PC gaming to see which one is better? 

 
As Razer is a free download, try comparing for yourself.
I'm guessing Silent Cinema was originally designed (years and years ago) for movies and I never hear about any updates for Silent Cinema.
Where as I'm sure the Razor software was designed for gaming and has been updated and maybe gets improvements.