10.1 Surround Sound Headphones??

[gtech]

Hi,
I've seen a pair of Sony 7.1 headphones on their website for £150, now I'm thinking of getting some but my friend has said Turtle Beach do a pair of 10.1 headphones!!!
I laughed because I dont believe him.
I've looked on their website and cant see any.

Can anyone tell me if it's a myth or not? Can you actually get 10.1 sourround sound headphones??

Maybe they are 5.1 that emulate 10.1 not sure. If anyone could help, I'd love to tell him that he's lying!

thanks in advance

[kalniel]

All these headphones are just 2.0, and simply downmix mutliple channels into stereo, so it doesn't matter if you have 5.1 or 10.1, they all get mixed down to 2.0

[gtech]

cool, thx for the answer, so can these headphones sound like a surround sound system where the sounds are all around?

I have decent sennheiser's but they are just for mixing.

[g8ina]

nope, surround sound relies on the position of the ear and minute movements of the head within the soundfield. If the cans are attached to the head, you dont get those movements and so even if there are speaker drivers in the front and back of the headphoines, youir ears will still only hear left and right !

[Zak33]

nope, surround sound relies on the position of the ear and minute movements of the head within the soundfield. If the cans are attached to the head, you dont get those movements and so even if there are speaker drivers in the front and back of the headphoines, youir ears will still only hear left and right !

he's right.. they can work properly if the rear driver has a different size and frequency to the front one in each ear piece. But you gotta get used to how that sounds for it to be effective in a game. It worked pretty well in movies actually.. but less well in a fast paced fire fight or combat sim.

I had Medusa's for a few years and on some games they worked very well, but not for the ones I got shot in! So, I went back to stereo again!

However, with a really good sound card, the rear signal is coded to sound different ANYway...... and particularly in IL-2 where you get to move your "virtual" head through 45degree arcs to right and left, it worked fairly well.

[Jasp]

Normally I'd have mirrored what g8ina and Kaniel have said but having owned and used a set of Roccat Kaves for the last 9 months that's sadly not true, playing games I can accurately pinpoint sounds behind me and all around for that matter in games when the games are set to 5.1. The Kaves use several drivers so theirs no down mixing with standard 3.5mm jacks no usb.

[Zak33]

Normally I'd have mirrored what g8ina and Kaniel have said but having owned and used a set of Roccat Kaves for the last 9 months that's sadly not true, playing games I can accurately pinpoint sounds behind me and all around for that matter in games when the games are set to 5.1. The Kaves use several drivers so theirs no down mixing with standard 3.5mm jacks no usb.

Jasp, you're right of course, BUT the quality of the sound card AND the drivers AND the game all playa part.

And everyone's expereince is different.

I have a Razer Barracuda AC-1 and I have the hard wired 5.1 headphones..and they sound MORE directional in both CoD4 and ARMA2 in STEREO on Sennheaisers than with the (very expensive) proper headphones.

However, in CoD5, it's un noticable.

[Jasp]

Jasp, you're right of course, BUT the quality of the sound card AND the drivers AND the game all playa part.

And everyone's expereince is different.

I have a Razer Barracuda AC-1 and I have the hard wired 5.1 headphones..and they sound MORE directional in both CoD4 and ARMA2 in STEREO on Sennheaisers than with the (very expensive) proper headphones.

However, in CoD5, it's un noticable.

Quite true, never tried a pair of decent stereo headphones. Last pair i owned were HD 202s which I totally hated, it was a toss up at the time between the Kaves and HD 555s which I heard were good for the money.

[g8ina]

Get some Sennheiser HD series.... My 600's are simply stunning.

Moving on a little on this, does anyone remember Zuccarelli Labs ? Holophonic Sound ? Pink FLoyd "The Final Cut" used it and produced amazingly 3d sound, all down to extremely accurate phasing in the whole record chain I suspect. Now that *does* work very well in headphones !

[kalniel]

Yup there's lots of tricks you can do to emulate surround in headphones - volume, crossfeed and even waveform manipulations.. however they are still playing out 2.0, and there would be no difference between a set labelled '5.1' or '10.1' - the very concept doesn't work when applied to headphones..

[Uriel]

Theoretically, I prefer stereo headphones. Used to own Speedlink Medusas. I could tell the difference between front and back but 5.1 (multiple driver) headphones are fundamentally flawed. Virtualised surround on stereo headphones can give much more realistic results.

Your normal perception of surround sound depends on hearing the sound with both ears. As practcally all available audio is mastered for speakers, headphones don't recreate that convincingly.

You can emulate surround sound via stereo headphones, using Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs). HRTFs are unique to the individual, but if you can find a generic one that suits you it works very well.

Dolby Headphone, on most Xonar soundcards and a few headsets marketed as 5.1 / 7.1 works very well for me. With the right set of headphones I could easily forget I was wearing them. It gives clear direction and externalises the sound so I don't get that usual 'in head' sound you get with headphones. Essentially, it's simulating 5 speakers around you and a listening room (although the room effects can vary where the hardware or software allows + adding Pro-logic II gives a 7 speaker effect)) .

I find CMSS-3D on X-Fi works for direction but doesn't let me forget I'm wearing headphones. In some other ways it's superior to Dolby Headphone. For most audio CMSS-3D simulates 7 speakers around you (For Xtreme Audio and USB variants this is as far as it goes). For compatible game audio, it simulates the in game soundfield directly. This can include elevation, as well as the usual horizontal directional cues for 'true' 3D audio. Theoretically it can simulate '128.0' where each channel can be anywhere in 3D space. I've not yet seen Creative's marketing try to claim that yet though...

Thankfully CMSS-3D vertical positioning and HRTF directional audio works for up to 4 channel surround speakers. I have my X-Fi do that and send the output to an external Dolby Headphone reciever. The results are really quite special, giving me the sense of distance that I find CMSS-3d is usually missing.

There's a free Beta test of a service that allows you to create a custom HRTF and use it in games with any soundcard or stereo headphones / headset. I gave it a quick test and it seemed to give pretty good results - roughtly comparable with the Xonar and X-Fi offerings. If anyone fancies trying it you can sign up here: http://www.myears.net.au/. It will become subscription based when it launches so try it while you can.

[Zak33]

while we're talking surround sound and games etc..

http://forums.hexus.net/audio-visual...test-file.html

that thread from 5 years ago, stickied at the top of this very forum, is worthy of a file download

[Jasp]

Yup there's lots of tricks you can do to emulate surround in headphones - volume, crossfeed and even waveform manipulations.. however they are still playing out 2.0, and there would be no difference between a set labelled '5.1' or '10.1' - the very concept doesn't work when applied to headphones..

The set of Kaves im wearing at the moment contain multiple drivers at 12 degree angles in each earcup, i was dubious when I bought them but they do 5.1 perfectly and theirs no dolby/stereo trickery they are actual 5.1 headphones, most 5.1 ones are USB stereo ones these ain't.

[Uriel]

I agree that 5.1 headphones like the Kaves do work. Having said that, I now think the virtualisation 'tricks' have pretty much surpassed them. I won't be buying another set of 'true' surround headphones after hearing what virtualisation over stereo can do.

[virokka]

10.1 would be crazy but i feel like an audio retard i can never tell the difference between any headphones and i normally just use the ones that come with any device - i do feel im missing out