Dolby Atmos with headphones

Griff7520

Griff7520

Griff7520

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Hi all, What headphones would work well with dolby atmos. And would dolby work with a dac
My current set up is bayer dynamic mmx300 with optical into a fosi audio dac-q4. Would a better headset be an upgrade on my headset

tia
 
Griff7520 said:
Hi all, What headphones would work well with dolby atmos. And would dolby work with a dac
My current set up is bayer dynamic mmx300 with optical into a fosi audio dac-q4. Would a better headset be an upgrade on my headset

tia
Click to expand...
Almost every DAC for headphones is 2 channel
 
One of the problems with this kind of setup is what works best will depend person to person - I've used headphones with Dolby surround audio features where it was just a muddled mess and others where it worked amazingly - but then other people have tried those headphones and had a very different opinion.
 
ok thanks guys
So basically my current set up wont benefit with atmos because my dac is only 2 channel,
If i connect directly to the on board sound or perhaps a sound card then it may work depending on whether my headphones are good quality, I am thinking a higher end headphone may be much better than the mmx300's but also depending on the person it may be good or not good

Is this correct?

my usage is mainly fps games and I have lots of trouble with directional awareness whilst gaming, sometime I have no Idea what direction I am being shot from, Very frustrating.
Which headphones do you think is best for directional awareness and how would they be set up, in other words with onboard sound/soundcard or with my dac, I like my dac because it is much louder compared with my onboard sound

Any suggestions most appreciated
 
I think it should still work with optical, I use the Dolby so on Windows with my dt990 and akg702, using 3.5 connector so stereo headphones. I have both the Dolby and DTS app an it takes stereo and makes virtual surround. Obviously not the same as software speaker's but I think it makes a big improvement, both apps on both headphones. With maybe a slight preference for DTS.

I find it's more like it takes the sound from being played in your ears or next to them to further out and away.

I'm not a great FPS player but heard good reviews about both headphones and I find they do make a difference.
 
sgavan said:
I think it should still work with optical, I use the Dolby so on Windows with my dt990 and akg702, using 3.5 connector so stereo headphones. I have both the Dolby and DTS app an it takes stereo and makes virtual surround. Obviously not the same as software speaker's but I think it makes a big improvement, both apps on both headphones. With maybe a slight preference for DTS.

I find it's more like it takes the sound from being played in your ears or next to them to further out and away.

I'm not a great FPS player but heard good reviews about both headphones and I find they do make a difference.
Click to expand...
I all ready own the ak702 but find the bayers's better quality sound, to my ears anyway. I have seen loads of posts about the dt headphones and am really thinking of seeing if I can get a good deal on some and give them a try. Any owners here who can confirm if surround/direction is good with these
thanks
 
Griff7520 said:
ok thanks guys
So basically my current set up wont benefit with atmos because my dac is only 2 channel,
If i connect directly to the on board sound or perhaps a sound card then it may work depending on whether my headphones are good quality, I am thinking a higher end headphone may be much better than the mmx300's but also depending on the person it may be good or not good

Is this correct?

my usage is mainly fps games and I have lots of trouble with directional awareness whilst gaming, sometime I have no Idea what direction I am being shot from, Very frustrating.
Which headphones do you think is best for directional awareness and how would they be set up, in other words with onboard sound/soundcard or with my dac, I like my dac because it is much louder compared with my onboard sound

Any suggestions most appreciated
Click to expand...
I tried playing with my Focal Utopia headphones once. It was like wallhack levels of directional awareness. So it is possible to improve that with better quality headphones and dac/amp.

There's various spatial surround virtualisers you could try.

Nothing beats the real surround, though. Still in awe of the wireless Sony HT-A9 system I have.
 
XeNoNF50 said:
I tried playing with my Focal Utopia headphones once. It was like wallhack levels of directional awareness. So it is possible to improve that with better quality headphones and dac/amp.

There's various spatial surround virtualisers you could try.

Nothing beats the real surround, though. Still in awe of the wireless Sony HT-A9 system I have.
Click to expand...
At £3700 for a set of those I would expect a good sound quality but they are a bit out of my price range ;)
 
hornetstinger said:
It's going to be a gimmick it'll just use DSP.

Unless you can find a headphone with multiple drivers it'll just use DSP trickery to make pseudo surround & Atmos
Click to expand...
Nothing gimmick in binaural sound.
We humans have binaural hearing, not stereo hearing.
That basic physics of hearing was understood already long before technical progress had enabled any electric amplifiers for marketing to dream about stereo sound.

It's those multi driver headphones which are gamer gimmicks:
Sound behaves entirely different when traveling to ears from actual speakers (/source) than from headphones.
Hence it's physically impossible to properly mimic sound of proper surround speaker set by cramming more (cheap garbage) drivers into headphones.


But the way how sound travels to ears from speakers can be simulated mathematically and resulting sound signals from all source speakers mixed together into two channel sound.
Which must be listened with normal stereo headphones without any effects or processing or more garbage drivers.


hornetstinger said:
Because DSP can't replace actualy physical drivers.
Click to expand...
BS.
 
Are movies and music available as binaural? Can you choose that "headphone soundtrack" on a BD? Nope.

They're mixed in multi-channel surround. They are require a multi channel surround system.

If you have headphones it'll downmix to stereo. You may have some kinda of gimmicky DSP to create fake surround from headphones but it's not mixed natively.
 
Griff7520 said:
my usage is mainly fps games and I have lots of trouble with directional awareness whilst gaming, sometime I have no Idea what direction I am being shot from, Very frustrating.
Click to expand...
Try first two minutes of this for good quick test of headphones. (and how close to average your head shape is)
Just make sure there are no effects/processing going on, because those mess binaural cues relying on accurate reproduction.

Here's another:

"Base model/starting point" of MMX300, DT770, definitely does respectably well in that for closed headphone.
Assuming MMX300 is little more accurate/neutral on bass (like I've read few times) it should do better.


Though having HRTF customized closer to your actual head shape would be likely clearly better, especially in directly front/rear positioning.
(which lacks any time differences)
Besides other design flaws that upstair's guy forgot to standardize head shape when creating human...
 
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