Surround sound tests

[TwinBoom]

besides saying just rubbish say what makes it rubbish oh right you dont know.

normal headphones (With good speacker range) 30$. knowing how to use a computer and ears is really all you need

end cost= 30$ surround sound scale to 1-10= 6-8

turtle beach, trition, or astro "gaming hedsets" 80$-150$. sound card that has atleast 5.1 30-150$

end cost=100$-300$ surround sound scale to 1-10=4-8

high end surround sound system 600$-1500$. high end sound card - 110-150$

end cost=710-1650$ surround sound scale to 1-10=9-10

i like my hi end surround but 3d surround is up to par.
no need to get mad because your 150$ headset sounds the same as some 30$ ones

Nonsense rubbish = troll

[The Fugitive]

besides saying just rubbish say what makes it rubbish oh right you dont know.

normal headphones (With good speacker range) 30$. knowing how to use a computer and ears is really all you need

end cost= 30$ surround sound scale to 1-10= 6-8

turtle beach, trition, or astro "gaming hedsets" 80$-150$. sound card that has atleast 5.1 30-150$

end cost=100$-300$ surround sound scale to 1-10=4-8

high end surround sound system 600$-1500$. high end sound card - 110-150$

end cost=710-1650$ surround sound scale to 1-10=9-10

If you paid more attention to your spelling and typing skills in your post more people "might" find what you say interesting, most likely not, but it's good practice any way.

i like my hi end surround but 3d surround is up to par.
no need to get mad because your 150$ headset sounds the same as some 30$ ones

You have a high end surround system? Aren't you the one who had to take a break a while back because you couldn't afford the $15 a month?

I agree, Twins right, your a troll.

I've had cheap headsets, good surround sound sets, and all kinds of stuff in between. My TurtleBeach set are the best I've ever listen to. The $1000 surround system in my living room isn't equal to the headset. The biggest difference is in the background sounds. With the headset all I hear is what is presented in the headset. The surround in the living room has it's limitations due to the room acoustics and any other sounds presented in the house/area. The headset is crisp, clear, and has no interference. 

[olds442]

just curious about this because my g35 just broke.  they're being held by duck tape and wood tong depressors as an emergency.  I have a good set of 50 dollar headset in the closet.  was wondering how can i get those to simulate surround sound.  i have a 7.1 on board plus a xfi extreme gamer sound card.  perhaps you could write briefly and tell me how to set it up so I can hear airplanes moving around just like they do with my g35.  who knows maybe i can write a report and help other guys avoid wasting money and spend it on better vc's instead.  I am being serious too.

semp

most simple way to do it with out your sound card software is.

go into windows control panel
next go to hardware and sound.
now go into sound
now in the playback tab click where your headphones are plugged in at. (e.g. if there plugged in front headphone jack or rear speaker jack dose not matter)
now click properties, then go to the tab called "enhancements"
in the enhancements tab there may be alot of settings but the one you want to click is called "virtual surround" then click ok.
and your done. works great.

with your sound cards software for mine it looks like this when headphones pluged in.

then go to this tab

when u click this tab it may look like this turn macroFX on and turn elevation filter on

when u click test you will hear the independent channels at work.

PLEASE NOTE! when in aces high 2 put sounds on "windows default" any another WILL NOT work with this 3d sound!!!

[olds442]

did it work? i forgot to say i helps if u reboot first then play aces high.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

3d sound is a money saver. sure a 200$ pare of headphones will SOUND better than 99 cent ones but you can still get the same surround sound for both.

say 3d sound aint good? put any pair of headphones on and wacth this (note only uses 2 channel sound) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI

Some people do not have the ability to tell the difference between a medium and a good system. Some can't even tell the difference between wal-mart boxed crap and a high-end audio system. An experienced listener can tell the difference. If you can't consider yourself lucky since you've just saved yourself a few thousand dollars.

Going to a high-end audio expo can be a real eye opener. But it's a risky thing to do - once you know how an audio system should sound like at the 100k price range you'll never be happy with your own set again. Uh, unless you happen to own a 100k set already. With one exception - DIY electrostatic speakers with which you can cheat your way to the 50k price range using just 1-2k in the process.

In my youth we used to go to the expos every year. And every year when I went home I hated my own audio system. Untill the last time a 20 or so years back when I noticed that most systems in the expo actually sounded worse than my own. There were a few exceptions but they were in an astronomical price range.

[Wiley]

This thread has gotten me thinking about what I actually get out of my cheap 5.1 headset.

The conclusion I've come to is, directional sound seems to work reasonably well in the direction I'm looking.  I can tell the difference between something being at 3/9 o'clock and forward of 1:30/10:30 or so.  Stuff behind me doesn't seem to be particularly directional, though if I turn my head with TIR I get a sense of the angle it's coming in from.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the same thing could be accomplished with stereo.

Wiley.

[olds442]

This thread has gotten me thinking about what I actually get out of my cheap 5.1 headset.

The conclusion I've come to is, directional sound seems to work reasonably well in the direction I'm looking.  I can tell the difference between something being at 3/9 o'clock and forward of 1:30/10:30 or so.  Stuff behind me doesn't seem to be particularly directional, though if I turn my head with TIR I get a sense of the angle it's coming in from.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the same thing could be accomplished with stereo.

Wiley.

with stero headphones i think it works better. u have infintie  amount of channels insted of 6 it uses knownledge of human hearing 3d sound dose.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

with stero headphones i think it works better. u have infintie  amount of channels insted of 6 it uses knownledge of human hearing 3d sound dose.

You're wrong. Headphones do not have any more channels than a regular speaker setup. Where they differ is they can deliver phase coherent sound to the listeners ears, a feat most speakers can't do. Electrostatic panels can deliver a headphone-like accuracy and 3D imaging but without the annoying sound-in-your-head effect.

Well positioned panel speakers can actually produce a surround sound to one listener in the 'sweet spot' without any additional speakers, just like headphones do.

[olds442]

You're wrong. Headphones do not have any more channels than a regular speaker setup. Where they differ is they can deliver phase coherent sound to the listeners ears, a feat most speakers can't do. Electrostatic panels can deliver a headphone-like accuracy and 3D imaging but without the annoying sound-in-your-head effect.

Well positioned panel speakers can actually produce a surround sound to one listener in the 'sweet spot' without any additional speakers, just like headphones do.

you  dont understand i said i think headphones that use 3d sound are better than headphones that use 5.1

again a surround sound system is better than all the above

[MrRiplEy[H]]

you  dont understand i said i think headphones that use 3d sound are better than headphones that use 5.1

again a surround sound system is better than all the above

Which headphones use 3D sound and what exactly do you mean by it? Do you mean virtual speakers done by audio processing i.e. regular headphones?

[olds442]

Which headphones use 3D sound and what exactly do you mean by it? Do you mean virtual speakers done by audio processing i.e. regular headphones?

again as stated before u could do this with any headphones and yes windows  7 has virtual surround sound built in.

[RTHolmes]

I reckon you should generally get better 3D placement using stereo headphones vs surround headphones of the same quality.

why? for surround to work the speaker placement is critical. with a 5.1 or 7.1 surround speaker system set up correctly, there is a fairly big sweet spot where small changes in your head position have hardly any effect on your 3D sound perception. this consistency allows your sound perception to place objects in the 3D space consistently.

now consider surround headsets. a few mm movement has a drastic effect on the placement of the sound source. its like moving your surround speakers a metre away from their ideal position.

more importantly it has a larger effect on the sound your ear hears from that speaker. look at a human ear, its a very complicated shape acoustically. move a few mm from one spot to another on the ear and the route to the inner ear can be almost completely different. the amount of cartilage and soft tissue will change alot too. this is very important because 3D perception depends on these very subtle differences in reverb, phase and eq shaping.

if 3D headsets were custom fitted to the user so they couldnt move relative to the ear (like custom fitted hearing aids but shaped to the entire ear), then surround headsets could work pretty well. as it is I suspect the subtle audio cues we need for 3D perception arent consistent enough from surround headsets.

I tested my current setup (X58 onboard sound/Sennheiser stereo headset) with a DX utilty which placed sounds randomly in the 3D space. it was suprisingly accurate, front/rear was really easy to determine, high/low was alot harder, as you'd expect.

[guncrasher]

I connected my old stereo headset.  I cant make it sound like my g35 when it comes down to surround sound.  the sounds dont seem to match the direction where the sound should be coming from.  I currently holding my g35 with ducktape and wooden tongue depressors as required in the manual.  due to lots of overtime in the past couple of weeks, I have billions of dollars to burn.  thinking I am gonna order the 7.1 headset recommended here.


semp

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I connected my old stereo headset.  I cant make it sound like my g35 when it comes down to surround sound.  the sounds dont seem to match the direction where the sound should be coming from.  I currently holding my g35 with ducktape and wooden tongue depressors as required in the manual.  due to lots of overtime in the past couple of weeks, I have billions of dollars to burn.  thinking I am gonna order the 7.1 headset recommended here.


semp

You might be better off ordering a true hifi headset from sennheiser, koss, beyerdynamics or the sorts.

The fact that they call it 7.1 tells me it's a gimmick! 7.1 means 7 channels + a subwoofer. Headphones do not have center channels nor do they have subwoofers.

[Chalenge]

Semp when you plug your stereo headset in does your soundcard allow you to setup the playback device as 5.1? or is stereo the only option?