- Oct 5, 2009
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This is probably an odd choice of a forum to post about something like this, but there's already a gaming thread, as well as movie thread--and this pertains to music in general as well.
If you've never heard of Dolby Headphone, it's a technique that simulates a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup through a standard two speaker set of headphones (or IEMs, whatever, just has to have two speakers that sit next to your ears). Sounds super gimmicky and generic right?
At the start of 2009 I ended up buying the Tritton AX 720 headset that actually had a Dolby Headphone decoder. At the time I did not realize that you could also simply hook up whatever other pair of headphones you wanted to it (amping would of course help a lot), and the defualt pair that came with the set sucked something fierce. It was very low-fi, and even if it did an ok job at simulating 5.1, it still sounded like a turd, so I took them back. I ended up getting the Tritton AX "pro" set, which works differently. It has four independent speakers in each ear cup, so the seperation is more distinct. They also were not lacking in the bass department, but they never actually sounded "nice" overall, but were "ok" for watching movies, even though it could never come close to simulating a center speaker correctly.
Anyway, I was getting entirely sick of their suckage (my Sennheisers in stereo still sounded a lot better, but it was still just two channels), so I did a lot more research on the latest 5.1+ headsets, and this led me right back to what I had originally and had pretty much dismissed: Dolby Headphone. During my research I had learned how to set it up on Media Player Classic, Home Cinema to watch movies with, as well as how to set it up correctly on Foobar. I'm not really sold on it for non live music, but it's pretty amazing for live, and a neat gimmick for non live--but it gets kind of old quickly.
For movies and games however, it's truly one of the most amazing things I've ever heard. Apparently it pales in comparison to the Smyth SVS Realizer (it's supposed to be virtually impossible to tell that you're listening with headphones, but it costs $3000). Even so, it's quite impressive and BLOWS AWAY any kind of headset that's promoting "5.1" or whatever that uses multiple small drivers in each ear--those are complete and utter suckage in comparison. STAY AWAY from them. Often, with the right pair of headphones, as well as audio track--even though you know you have headphones on--you can actually forget you're wearing headphones, it's that convincing. It also does a stellar job at faking the center speaker too.
After having listened to a bunch of movies (The Matrix, Reloaded and Saving Private Ryan are exceptional demos for this) on my PC with this, I started looking at a simple solution for consoles/blu-ray players. I already knew about the Astro mixamp (it's relatively cheap too if you buy it without the crappy headphones), which was pretty much all I wanted, except for one glaring caveat: it does not decode DTS. More and more Blu-Rays are DTS now over DD, so that isn't such a hot prospect for those who planned on getting the LOTR and Star Wars trilogies on Blu-Ray soon. It also only has one of the three variances of Dolby Headphone (DH2), which is fine for most things, but often is either too little or too much.
I ended up buying http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones/pioneer-se-dir800c/4505-7877_7-31225550.html#reviewPage1. They cost nearly 1.5x as much as the Astro Mixamp (without the headphones), but are comparable in cost to the "full" Astro set, and are so much better. You used to actually be able to buy them for essentially the same cost, but they are rarer now. The supplied phones that come with them are actually quite good, and especially comfortable, but the main reason to get that set is for the decoder box since it also has a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones, that keep the same effect.
Here's an example of what this sounds like (these are recorded in binaural, but this is pretty much what movies sound like in DH):
You have to be wearing some kind of two speaker headphone set, or this will do nothing.
Anyway, you can simply set it up on your PC and see if you like what Dolby Headphone does and then go from there. Since it's free, the only thing you have to lose is time.
http://pcloadletter.co.uk/2011/04/05/5-1-channel-audio-through-headphones/ (For movies)
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread...obar-configuration-for-all-stereo-music-files (music)
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/555263/foobar2000-dolby-headphone-config-comment-discuss (music)
If you've never heard of Dolby Headphone, it's a technique that simulates a 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup through a standard two speaker set of headphones (or IEMs, whatever, just has to have two speakers that sit next to your ears). Sounds super gimmicky and generic right?
At the start of 2009 I ended up buying the Tritton AX 720 headset that actually had a Dolby Headphone decoder. At the time I did not realize that you could also simply hook up whatever other pair of headphones you wanted to it (amping would of course help a lot), and the defualt pair that came with the set sucked something fierce. It was very low-fi, and even if it did an ok job at simulating 5.1, it still sounded like a turd, so I took them back. I ended up getting the Tritton AX "pro" set, which works differently. It has four independent speakers in each ear cup, so the seperation is more distinct. They also were not lacking in the bass department, but they never actually sounded "nice" overall, but were "ok" for watching movies, even though it could never come close to simulating a center speaker correctly.
Anyway, I was getting entirely sick of their suckage (my Sennheisers in stereo still sounded a lot better, but it was still just two channels), so I did a lot more research on the latest 5.1+ headsets, and this led me right back to what I had originally and had pretty much dismissed: Dolby Headphone. During my research I had learned how to set it up on Media Player Classic, Home Cinema to watch movies with, as well as how to set it up correctly on Foobar. I'm not really sold on it for non live music, but it's pretty amazing for live, and a neat gimmick for non live--but it gets kind of old quickly.
For movies and games however, it's truly one of the most amazing things I've ever heard. Apparently it pales in comparison to the Smyth SVS Realizer (it's supposed to be virtually impossible to tell that you're listening with headphones, but it costs $3000). Even so, it's quite impressive and BLOWS AWAY any kind of headset that's promoting "5.1" or whatever that uses multiple small drivers in each ear--those are complete and utter suckage in comparison. STAY AWAY from them. Often, with the right pair of headphones, as well as audio track--even though you know you have headphones on--you can actually forget you're wearing headphones, it's that convincing. It also does a stellar job at faking the center speaker too.
After having listened to a bunch of movies (The Matrix, Reloaded and Saving Private Ryan are exceptional demos for this) on my PC with this, I started looking at a simple solution for consoles/blu-ray players. I already knew about the Astro mixamp (it's relatively cheap too if you buy it without the crappy headphones), which was pretty much all I wanted, except for one glaring caveat: it does not decode DTS. More and more Blu-Rays are DTS now over DD, so that isn't such a hot prospect for those who planned on getting the LOTR and Star Wars trilogies on Blu-Ray soon. It also only has one of the three variances of Dolby Headphone (DH2), which is fine for most things, but often is either too little or too much.
I ended up buying http://reviews.cnet.com/headphones/pioneer-se-dir800c/4505-7877_7-31225550.html#reviewPage1. They cost nearly 1.5x as much as the Astro Mixamp (without the headphones), but are comparable in cost to the "full" Astro set, and are so much better. You used to actually be able to buy them for essentially the same cost, but they are rarer now. The supplied phones that come with them are actually quite good, and especially comfortable, but the main reason to get that set is for the decoder box since it also has a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones, that keep the same effect.
Here's an example of what this sounds like (these are recorded in binaural, but this is pretty much what movies sound like in DH):
You have to be wearing some kind of two speaker headphone set, or this will do nothing.
Anyway, you can simply set it up on your PC and see if you like what Dolby Headphone does and then go from there. Since it's free, the only thing you have to lose is time.
http://pcloadletter.co.uk/2011/04/05/5-1-channel-audio-through-headphones/ (For movies)
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread...obar-configuration-for-all-stereo-music-files (music)
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/555263/foobar2000-dolby-headphone-config-comment-discuss (music)
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