I'm curious if it's any better than Dolby Headphone. I still can't really tell if sound is coming from in front or behind or if sound is coming from above or below with that. Same with Razer Surround and whatever it is the Tritton decoder box uses. They all handle left and right directional sound flawlessly though.
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Dolby Atmos Headphone is a game changer online in my experience
- Thread starter crazepharmacist
- Start date
You should check out what Rainbow Six Siege does for audio. It's quite interesting, if there's something in the next room or upstairs/downstairs then as long as the sound source is from an area that's within this virtual circle that surrounds your character model then you hear it directly otherwise you hear it coming from the nearest open door/window which you follow and once you are at the door/window you hear it coming from the next nearest door/window unless it's the source itself. Pretty neat.
https://youtu.be/fI4YfurxVZU
Lister
Banned
Well, it deifnitely wouldn't be the same experience, but I don't believe it has anythign to do with the mix of channels, as this is being done in real time by the game 's sound engine.
The soundstage with a set of speakers is going to feel wider, but it's compressed to a 2D flat plane, where as with headphones you at least have the capability of full 3D sound. Of course a super expensive atmos setup is also a possibility, but not one most gamers will have access to, at least not yet.
It's also easier to get the full dynamic range of true quality of sound with headsets vs speakers, unless you are in a very quite room with great accoustics.
Lister
Banned
You could be one of the unlucky few for which HRTF algorithms won't work so well.
mattwhite924
Member
Why did they do it?
Supposedly sound cards were one of the biggest causes for system instability, and moving audio processing to the CPU solved a lot of that.
I'm just playing around with the Dolby Atmos now but I have a question..
I'm using Hyper X Cloud 2 which has a 7.1 amp with it, so do I turn off the 7.1 on my amp and turn on Atmos with 'Turn on virtual 7.1' checked in the settings?
Or do I turn off the 7.1 option on Atmos then turn my 7.1 on, on my amp?
I'm using Hyper X Cloud 2 which has a 7.1 amp with it, so do I turn off the 7.1 on my amp and turn on Atmos with 'Turn on virtual 7.1' checked in the settings?
Or do I turn off the 7.1 option on Atmos then turn my 7.1 on, on my amp?
Lister
Banned
Well, you'd nee dot turn off the HRTF 7.1 on your amp and turn on the one in the Atmos settings to experience the Atmos version and compare.
Just make sure you are only using one of the two, you definitely don't want to have both on.
Avid Reading Horse
Member
I used the Razer one for a while since it was free by typing in a serial for some old Razer junk that's waiting to be recycled. I liked it. The software had some issues with enabling/disabling when my headphones were plugged in though. When it worked I thought it was really good.
As of getting the Creator update installed I've been using Dolby Atmos. It automatically works when I plug in. It sounds better than the Windows Sonic in my book. Overall pretty good. Not convinced it's any better than the Razer version in the sound department but the convenience factor makes it totally worth it.
I also figured since it would work on Xbox it would be fun to try out there. I have an old Astro MixAmp with its own surround processing that works pretty well. I disabled it and enabled Atmos in my Xbox settings across the optical out. It....doesn't sound as good as it does on PC. And it doesn't sound as good as the MixAmp surround either. Though I lean towards my PC sounding better than Xbox w/ MixAmp so I don't know what the heck is going on.
Overall the 5.1 / 7.1 -> headphone surround processing is much better than a standard stereo mix in my opinion. Better positional audio, and less harsh on the ears since more of the sound makes it to your opposite ear in a more natural sounding fashion.
As of getting the Creator update installed I've been using Dolby Atmos. It automatically works when I plug in. It sounds better than the Windows Sonic in my book. Overall pretty good. Not convinced it's any better than the Razer version in the sound department but the convenience factor makes it totally worth it.
I also figured since it would work on Xbox it would be fun to try out there. I have an old Astro MixAmp with its own surround processing that works pretty well. I disabled it and enabled Atmos in my Xbox settings across the optical out. It....doesn't sound as good as it does on PC. And it doesn't sound as good as the MixAmp surround either. Though I lean towards my PC sounding better than Xbox w/ MixAmp so I don't know what the heck is going on.
Overall the 5.1 / 7.1 -> headphone surround processing is much better than a standard stereo mix in my opinion. Better positional audio, and less harsh on the ears since more of the sound makes it to your opposite ear in a more natural sounding fashion.
PurpleMoustache
Member
Sorry for the bump, but I have a question for those who have it.
The wording on this whole situation is confusing. I understand the pitch, certain games/movies use a special encoding with Dolby Atmos for headphones, and it will take audio signals and try to give them an "Atmos" flavor...
Does this mean everything? Lets say I throw in a DVD with a 5.1 audio track to VLC, or listen to a live recording that has surround sound, also probably in VLC, or hit 5.1 in the audio mix of a non-Atmos game, does it automatically take that surround signal, and mix it down to virtualized surround without any fiddling?
The wording on some of the official marketing and technical blurbs seem to say that this is the case, but then I read other sources and it seems to suggest it's only officially Atmos certified material, etc...
The wording on this whole situation is confusing. I understand the pitch, certain games/movies use a special encoding with Dolby Atmos for headphones, and it will take audio signals and try to give them an "Atmos" flavor...
Does this mean everything? Lets say I throw in a DVD with a 5.1 audio track to VLC, or listen to a live recording that has surround sound, also probably in VLC, or hit 5.1 in the audio mix of a non-Atmos game, does it automatically take that surround signal, and mix it down to virtualized surround without any fiddling?
The wording on some of the official marketing and technical blurbs seem to say that this is the case, but then I read other sources and it seems to suggest it's only officially Atmos certified material, etc...
Omnii-chan
Member
This might be really useful in Rainbow 6 Siege. Stereo headphones give a pretty poor representation of where enemies are, more depth would be fantastic.
Going to give the free trial a shot.
Going to give the free trial a shot.
Toe-Knee
Member
My LG SJ9 soundbar arrived yesterday, shame that Sony aren't using Atmos in their games yet and seems to be no update on it's arrival. Main pull for me was movies and also BT Sport now using it with their 4K broadcasts.
Sony are using their own proprietary 3D audio that you can only use with the platinum headset.
I haven't tried it but apparently it's amazing in uncharted 4 and horizon.
True surround sound headphones will make you a god in R6S. No one is safe.
Avid Reading Horse
Member
My impression is that it does. I've only used the 'for headphones' flavor though. And as I said it doesn't seem to work that well on Xbox One. It does a good job for me on PC though.
I don't think 'true' surround makes any difference over decent virtual surround processing. I can hear 360 degrees no problem. No confusion on whether something is in front of me or behind. The real thing that's missing for game sound right now is up and down. That would really help in Siege in very specific circumstances. Luckily the floor contact sound is pretty distinct and you don't hear people under you without a sound hole so it still ends up working better than some other games in that regard.
Depends. Can you not tell where the sound is coming from? Or can you process what it means? It's got that whole whip-crack thing going on which is kind of cool but not super intuitive if you're used to 360 degree sonar hack COD style. That applies to R6 as well of course thanks to its sound propagation model.
I'm really glad games are starting to take more in-depth approaches to modeling audio these days.
Chittagong
Gold Member
ITT: people discover the world's best budget audio company for the first time
Schiit is amazing
Schiit is amazing
ResidentDante
Member
The surround effect was good in COD4 yes, but the gun sounds are complete shit. Everything fires like a BB gun sound and explosions have no thunder. The Bad Company games completely trashed COD4 and the later games in the sound department.
Yes, Dolby Atmos itself is object based, so instead of the sound being just 5 separate channels of audio , the sound is mastered in a 3D space (in the same way you would place a light source in a video game) and then calculates the processing to make it sound like it is coming from where it should be.
In the speaker version of atmos, the advantage is you can essentially have any speaker configuration and the system deals with where the sound should be coming from and where you speakers actually are.
For the headphone variant the same thing happens, but the processing is applied to create that effect directly into your 2 ear holes.
For a 5.1 source it will do the same thing, but the 3D positioning is far less precise. This is what Dolby headphone and Windows Sonic both do.
My headphones have multiple drivers, 6 per earcup. Not for surround but still
Dreams-Visions
Member
I don't notice much difference with or without Atmos or Windows Sonic on.
But I *do* notice when Atmos sounds bad. In some applications it's just terrible. I perfer Windows Sonic in all situations that I'd consider using Atmos for, to be frank.
I hear surround sound great in games like Overwatch whether this is on or not so I'm not sure what either is doing for me. I always know when people are behind or around me in games like that.
I continue to enjoy my Schiit Lyr 2.
I had to send their DAC back though. It was pretty schiit.
But I *do* notice when Atmos sounds bad. In some applications it's just terrible. I perfer Windows Sonic in all situations that I'd consider using Atmos for, to be frank.
I hear surround sound great in games like Overwatch whether this is on or not so I'm not sure what either is doing for me. I always know when people are behind or around me in games like that.
I continue to enjoy my Schiit Lyr 2.
I had to send their DAC back though. It was pretty schiit.
Can't beat Fiio when it comes to poverty audiophile
Dreams-Visions
Member
GroinShooter
Member
I've been thinking about testing these for a while now.
I compared both Sonic and Atmos through my AKAI EIE Pro interface vs THX TruStudio Pro's own surround option through my internal Creative Recon3D card (yup the comparison isn't fair as the AKAI interface already outputs noticeably better audio quality than the Recon3D card but I still wanted to test). As expected through the interface both Sonic and Atmos produce a lot better surround and audio quality than my Recon3D card's own THX TruStudio Pro does. The surround option in TruStudio has a highly present bathroom reverb effect whereas Sonic has none and Atmos has a very very very slight effect. Both Atmos and Sonic seem to be ways ahead in sound clarity and directional accuracy.
Tested GOW4, Wildlands, GTA V, BF1 and Phantom Pain. In Phantom Pain and BF1 Dolby Atmos sounds insanely good. Only while driving around in GTA V the audio sounded a bit off but that's always been the case with GTA V as it never had a really good vehicle radio music/SFX sound balance to begin with, adjusting SFX/radio volume helps though.
At the moment I feel like completely pulling out the Creative card and never using it again but the only thing preventing me to do so is the "smart volume" feature. I've been using it for years now and playing without it is strange as it's proven to be very useful in games like R6. It also works wonders in evening out GTA V's radio/SFX balance or the bad mixing in Xenoverse 2 etc. I've always wondered why a lot of people talk about virtual surround but any info about "smart volume" or similar tech seems to fly under the radar though in cases it can prove to be if not more but at least as useful as virtual surround.
Anyhow, I'm going to keep on playing using Dolby Atmos through the AKAI interface as in it's entirety it's vastly superior to TruStudio surround.
I compared both Sonic and Atmos through my AKAI EIE Pro interface vs THX TruStudio Pro's own surround option through my internal Creative Recon3D card (yup the comparison isn't fair as the AKAI interface already outputs noticeably better audio quality than the Recon3D card but I still wanted to test). As expected through the interface both Sonic and Atmos produce a lot better surround and audio quality than my Recon3D card's own THX TruStudio Pro does. The surround option in TruStudio has a highly present bathroom reverb effect whereas Sonic has none and Atmos has a very very very slight effect. Both Atmos and Sonic seem to be ways ahead in sound clarity and directional accuracy.
Tested GOW4, Wildlands, GTA V, BF1 and Phantom Pain. In Phantom Pain and BF1 Dolby Atmos sounds insanely good. Only while driving around in GTA V the audio sounded a bit off but that's always been the case with GTA V as it never had a really good vehicle radio music/SFX sound balance to begin with, adjusting SFX/radio volume helps though.
At the moment I feel like completely pulling out the Creative card and never using it again but the only thing preventing me to do so is the "smart volume" feature. I've been using it for years now and playing without it is strange as it's proven to be very useful in games like R6. It also works wonders in evening out GTA V's radio/SFX balance or the bad mixing in Xenoverse 2 etc. I've always wondered why a lot of people talk about virtual surround but any info about "smart volume" or similar tech seems to fly under the radar though in cases it can prove to be if not more but at least as useful as virtual surround.
Anyhow, I'm going to keep on playing using Dolby Atmos through the AKAI interface as in it's entirety it's vastly superior to TruStudio surround.
ResidentDante
Member
Finally got to try the Dolby Atmos Xbox One app, I went for the trial to test the Ghost In The Shell movie on UHD (I have the One S). My wife was in the room but not watching the movie, so I went for the headphones and decided to test the app.
Quite impressed actually! Nice heavy sound with lots of cool spacial effects. I enjoyed it!
Quite impressed actually! Nice heavy sound with lots of cool spacial effects. I enjoyed it!
Vinterbird
Member
Does Atmos work through a DAC? Just tried it out with the Mixamp DSC on my PC and didn't get any tangible difference.
Does the Astro drivers and stuff negate the Dolby stuff? Should I just move to the line in port on the computer itself?
Does the Astro drivers and stuff negate the Dolby stuff? Should I just move to the line in port on the computer itself?
AbandonedTrolley
Member
Yeah I have the headset, it does sound very good but volume levels are much higher with the sound bar and the bass is room shaking.
Just a tip, it's not only that headset, if you have PSVR you can run the 3D audio through the headset and just play on the TV like normal.
ResidentDante
Member
I've also tried Windows Sonic, which is supported in Win 10 and Xbox One also makes surround sound for earphones, but choosing it yesterday on the Xbox One gave me no effect (tried it with Deus Ex HR and Gears Ultimate Ed.). I've seen screenshots of the settings menu where there's a spatial option to toggle. Is this only for insiders so far? Will it be available soon for everyone?
SomewhatGroovy
Banned
Xbox One S Question:
Does anyone have a recommendation for a pair of headphones that may enhance the sounds over a standard Xbox One stereo headset or do all headsets generally offer no discernable difference?
Does anyone have a recommendation for a pair of headphones that may enhance the sounds over a standard Xbox One stereo headset or do all headsets generally offer no discernable difference?
Yes it is
CamHostage
Member
Curious, has anything been talked about regarding Nintendo Switch's audio capacities and if Nintendo had ever consider any of the virtualized surround sound technology out there?
I really loved the surround functions of the Nintendo DS speakers in the few games that used it, and there was some talk early with PSP that it might use the original Dolby Headphone spec for some things (a few UMD Video releases had surround sound tracks baked for headphone use, but no games ever did anything but general stereo in realtime.) Dolby Atmos isn't happening on Switch, and it seems like all the knock-offs and experimenters with audio that would be an alternative to Dolby have kind of faded out to my knowledge, so there's maybe not a partner out there to bring it Nintendo's way affordably. I don't know if the 3DS even bothered with the DS's surrounds, and even though Vita was compatible with Sony's "surround" headphones (they're 2.0, in fact Sony is keen not to oversell the virtual surround effects and puts "Wireless Stereo Headset" pm yje npx) it was only because there was an extra stereo jack. Nobody has talked about surround-on-the-go in a long, long time.
I've just always wished for surround effects in a portable system. You're using headphones all the time, you may be keyed into the sound of a portable game more than a home game (where there are no distractions and no hassle of switching on the surrounds in your dinky apartment/bedroom,) it's not system-selling technology anymore but it could be a nice bulletpoint in marketing a new title, but the only portable "surround" products I know of are a phone by I think LG (not sure if it ever even shipped?) and the occasional CES tech demo put on by Dolby (SRS had something called TruMedia years ago also, apparently, though again, no clue if it ever got out of the labs?)
I really loved the surround functions of the Nintendo DS speakers in the few games that used it, and there was some talk early with PSP that it might use the original Dolby Headphone spec for some things (a few UMD Video releases had surround sound tracks baked for headphone use, but no games ever did anything but general stereo in realtime.) Dolby Atmos isn't happening on Switch, and it seems like all the knock-offs and experimenters with audio that would be an alternative to Dolby have kind of faded out to my knowledge, so there's maybe not a partner out there to bring it Nintendo's way affordably. I don't know if the 3DS even bothered with the DS's surrounds, and even though Vita was compatible with Sony's "surround" headphones (they're 2.0, in fact Sony is keen not to oversell the virtual surround effects and puts "Wireless Stereo Headset" pm yje npx) it was only because there was an extra stereo jack. Nobody has talked about surround-on-the-go in a long, long time.
I've just always wished for surround effects in a portable system. You're using headphones all the time, you may be keyed into the sound of a portable game more than a home game (where there are no distractions and no hassle of switching on the surrounds in your dinky apartment/bedroom,) it's not system-selling technology anymore but it could be a nice bulletpoint in marketing a new title, but the only portable "surround" products I know of are a phone by I think LG (not sure if it ever even shipped?) and the occasional CES tech demo put on by Dolby (SRS had something called TruMedia years ago also, apparently, though again, no clue if it ever got out of the labs?)
BottleFlip
Banned
I usually prefer stereo to surround for most cases but I recently bought a Sennheiser GSX 1000 and it truly is a game changer. After I got it my performance in pubg increased drastically as I was able to much better pinpoint gunshot and footstep locations. I've tried other 7.1 implementations including dolby atmos and various soundblaster pcie cards but the gsx 1000 is imo the best of the best at creating a virtual 7.1 surround sound.
hardware canucks did a review on it recently and even recorded what its like to use it, although he turned on too much reverb.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGX069Zo8kE
What it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e_yVm-vcPM
hardware canucks did a review on it recently and even recorded what its like to use it, although he turned on too much reverb.
Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGX069Zo8kE
What it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e_yVm-vcPM
Avid Reading Horse
Member
Granted I have no hard facts one way or the other. But those mofos at Nintendo think it's a good idea to voice chat through your phone. I can't imagine getting decent surround sound out of that thing anytime soon.
I considered getting one of those at one point... But how is it for managing mic input? And for that matter, with Atmos I finally have a nice solution where I plug in my headset into my computer's audio, it automatically switches and turns on the virtual surround sound, and when I unplug I get my normal stereo speaker sound. I'm sold on the idea of a dedicated external sound device but not if I have to mess with driver menus every time I switch.
I considered getting one of those at one point... But how is it for managing mic input? And for that matter, with Atmos I finally have a nice solution where I plug in my headset into my computer's audio, it automatically switches and turns on the virtual surround sound, and when I unplug I get my normal stereo speaker sound. I'm sold on the idea of a dedicated external sound device but not if I have to mess with driver menus every time I switch.
Ecto311
Member
There is a demo of the difference on the overwatch dolby site. It makes a big difference since overwatch it calibrated or built for atmos compared to sonic. I am wondering how well it does for Destiny2 on the xbox and the PC soon. I can hear it with my HD598 and my HyperX Clouds for sure. Give the demo a go on their site. It helps if you download the less loss versions to test.
Best post.
It's great that people are experiencing the tech I was using 20 years ago. I wonder what we'd have had now if Creative didn't sue Aureal out of existence instead of trying to compete against their vastly superior tech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_3D
OG Half-Life on this bad boy was insane.
http://www.dansdata.com/MX300.htm
AFAIK Atmos still doesn't get to Aureal 3D levels yet. Atmos is object based and a receiver will position the sound in a full 360 sphere around the listener based on their calibrated setup.
Aureal 3D went further. Their tech allowed the building of a simplified map. Surfaces would be set to what type of material they were, and the audio process did a type of sound ray tracing. So while Creatives EAX at the time would be configured to apply reverb effects on sound. Aureal 3D audio wasn't pre-scripted so it dynamically changed based on the precise location of the player. It even allowed stuff like dynamic muffling of sound when an object is between you and the source.
Atmos is still cool, and it's great for movies which playout the same way so additional effects can be tweaked. I don't feel it's there yet for games, there is still much more it could do when in a dynamic environment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_3D
OG Half-Life on this bad boy was insane.
http://www.dansdata.com/MX300.htm
AFAIK Atmos still doesn't get to Aureal 3D levels yet. Atmos is object based and a receiver will position the sound in a full 360 sphere around the listener based on their calibrated setup.
Aureal 3D went further. Their tech allowed the building of a simplified map. Surfaces would be set to what type of material they were, and the audio process did a type of sound ray tracing. So while Creatives EAX at the time would be configured to apply reverb effects on sound. Aureal 3D audio wasn't pre-scripted so it dynamically changed based on the precise location of the player. It even allowed stuff like dynamic muffling of sound when an object is between you and the source.
Atmos is still cool, and it's great for movies which playout the same way so additional effects can be tweaked. I don't feel it's there yet for games, there is still much more it could do when in a dynamic environment.
I find the positional sound by Dolby Atmos on the same level of Dolby Headphones – with much less reverb.
However, Dolby Atmos forces two channel audio in Windows. What about games that won't offer multi channel settings in their options and take the default Windows setting? I guess they will just output stereo sound then, and the Dolby Atmos feature goes out the window.
EDIT: Sorry for thread digging, European user here, and seeing the OP's date as 7-12 I was thinking about 7th December...
Toe-Knee
Member
sooo when will SONY support this ??
I'm tired of waiting
They already do but it's a proprietary version for psvr and the platinum headset only.
I think currently horizon, Uncharted 4, deus ex mankind divided and gran turismo support it . And every vr game does apart from skyrim vr.
suddenlyissoon
Member
Atmos, when done correctly, would be incredibly awesome in games. I've got a 7.2.4 setup in my media room and honestly, even though there are plenty of audio tracks in Atmos with UHD media, many don't really take advantage of the overhead speakers like they should (and upmixing is hit or miss at times). I'd like to see more games to take advantage of it especially with atmospheric noises..
I did buy the Atmos for Headphones during the current sale and I do find it to be a lot better than Windows Sonic on basic stereo headphones. Well worth the cost I think.
I did buy the Atmos for Headphones during the current sale and I do find it to be a lot better than Windows Sonic on basic stereo headphones. Well worth the cost I think.
This is not true
Not entirely, but every audiophile will confirm that virtual surround in headphones work way better than squeezing more drivers in one headphone ear. It lacks in quality and it's too close to work fully for surround sound like it is best perceived by the human ear.
geordiemp
Member
MultiCore
Member
Anyone know if there is some special hardware for decoding in the ps platinum headphones? I know the psvr breakout box does for 3d audio. Just curious if atmos will ever come to ps4 and whether or not it is a hardware limitation of ps4. I know it output atmos from bluray movies but that is different from games.
I will take solid stereo Sennheisers over any of this cheap surround stuff.
Hell, in games like Uncharted you can just force 5.1 audio through your headphones and it does the a decent job of surround. Good stereo mixes almost ever have a problem getting audio to your ears anyway. Surround on headphones is a gimmick to me. I prefer solid drivers and two of them.
Hell, in games like Uncharted you can just force 5.1 audio through your headphones and it does the a decent job of surround. Good stereo mixes almost ever have a problem getting audio to your ears anyway. Surround on headphones is a gimmick to me. I prefer solid drivers and two of them.