Spec me a 2.0 speaker setup please

Relentless81

Relentless81

Relentless81

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Hi,

I've decided to sell my 5.1 speaker setup and go for a 2.0 setup as I dont use the bass box its always set to minimum and I want a cleaner tidier setup, here is what I would like to achieve please tell me if this makes sense or if I've massively failed somewhere -

I either want to leave the drivers and games set to 2.0 Stereo and flick between headphones and speakers using an Asus U7 external

Or

Using a Creative Z internal, flick between headphones and speakers using the driver software but games will remain on 2.0 Stereo

I notice some games have a headphone option, will this matter or will I need to change that every time time too? Headset is a HyperX Cloud so its 2.0

As for the speakers they will get used less than the headphones, I want Full Range speakers as no bass box, I have 15" width of space either side of my monitor. I am after clean sound for gaming as a priority I dont use my PC for music and movies much these days.

If people who know their stuff could confirm my query and recommend me some speakers I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
 
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Speakers: Edifier R1600TIII (£95)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/edifier-studio-r1600t-iii-2.0-60w-speakers-r1600tiii-sp-040-er.html

I have the older mkII version and use them for gaming, movies and music and have never found them lacking and the newer mkIII is even better. They are very clean sounding, even the bass, which never gets muddy.

Both of the solutions you list will run both headphones and speakers in simple stereo, you just tell it to use two channels and bypass the DSP.

I have to ask, why would you want the headphones to only use stereo when both systems will run virtual surround in either 6 or 8 channel mode?
While games tend to sound better using virtual surround, I always listen to music in simple stereo and bypass the DSP to remove any effects.

Games that have a headphone mode create their own binaural stream, which gives you simulated surround sound while listening in stereo. It's what the sound cards do in the DSP except the games are doing it in software.
 
Thanks for the response, you need to bare with me with me as I find sound setups very confusing, I've been using my current speakers without headphones for a long time.

Speakers, what about the cheaper Edifier versions what am I getting in the £95 version over the others?

What do you mean by bypass the DSP and what is DSP, is it the soundcard?

I always thought virtual surround was supposed to be rubbish and it was better to have a proper surround setup so I've never bothered, maybe its come along way since then as most people just seem to have two speakers these days for gaming?
 
Gaming in stereo with speakers is fine although even here, both devices can enhance the sound field using the DSP. You just select 6 or 8 channel audio and use the virtual speaker features, Dolby Virtual Speaker with the Asus and SBX with the sound blaster.

More impressive is virtual surround through stereo headphones, whether it be created by the game engine or in hardware by the device's DSP. If using a game's headphone driver, you just tell your device to listen in stereo and let the software do it's work. If using the device, Dolby Headphone (Asus) or SBX (Sound Blaster), then you set the number of channels to either 6 or 8 and then turn on the effect processing. The effect can be quite realistic and when you are immersed in a game you tend to forget that you are listening to stereo headphones because the sounds will be coming from all around you.

DSP stands for Digital Signal Processor and is basically a specialised CPU that only deals with audio. It is able to perform these tricks by adding varying amounts of delay and crossfeed to the different sounds and then merges all of the separate streams into a binaural stream. A binaural stream is what you would hear if the stereo microphones were placed in your ears, facing outwards, so they basically record everything your ears hear, which includes the positional cues that enable us to place sounds around us without seeing the source.

All of the very best gaming headsets are stereo headphones with an added microphone, none of them use multiple drivers.

Both the Edifier 1280T and R1800TIII are excellent speakers and are both £80 a pair. The 1280T is cheaper as it is lower power, 42W compared with 60W, while the R1800T is probably cheaper because the gloss black finish is less popular. The 980T (£40) while not bad are not going to be as impressive as the others but it's your choice.
 
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Thanks for the detailed reply, I'm playing bf4 right now and messing with stereo and surround headphone settings, surround settings sounds like it has sound missing, as soon as I set it to stereo the sounds are there again

There is also a message that states only choose surround if you have surround speakers I assume this means headphones with built in surround rather than stereo in the Clouds that I am using
 
So I came across this situation myself and people told me to buy Studio Monitors which I can safely say after using a cheap 2.1 setup is just amazing in comparison, they are a bit expensive though so I would have to ask what your budget is.
 
Been playing a bit longer and flicking between stereo and surround headphone setting in bf4 and the normal stereo setting definitely sounds better, surround just sounds muted and like there is sounds missing

Really confused about what surround is supposed to do here

Budget I think would be around £150 for speakers and sound card
 
Isn't there an enhanced headphone setting somewhere?

I don't have Battlefield 4 so can't really help.
 
In BF4? Not that I can see, under Headphones there is only Stereo or Surround options

Reading into it a lot more it seems the Surround option is for headphones with the built in hardware. To get virtual surround from what I have read it seems you need to set BF4 to output 5.1 by selecting HiFi or Home Cinema and Surround and then set 5.1 in Windows on whatever device you use, within the device driver you then enable the virtual surround option like you said earlier

I have no way of testing this though and not sure I want to fork out £50 for a sound card to see what it sounds like

I'm going to have a serious think about wether its worth it or not, Stereo sounds good but I cant hear enemy footsteps and its difficult to gauge where sounds are coming from unlike when I'm using my 5.1 speakers but I cant use them at the moment so I'm stuck with Stereo on the headphones
 
You have a Creative Soundblaster Z? Goto the SBX Pro Studio. Turn SBX Pro Studio off. Right click on the audio icon in the status bar, click on playback devices then configure speakers and set it to 5.1. Tell me if you feel a difference after that.

What headphones are you using, it could be to do with that.

I spent literally just over £150 on my M-Audio BX5 Carbons. You can pick up M-Audio BX5 D2s that a literally the same as my Carbons for around £140 off of Amazon. I am not sure if I am allowed to link other forums here so if you want I can send you a link to a thread I made in a forum dedicated to audiophiles asking for advice and basically showing you what one guy told me.
 
No not yet, I'm debating getting one or the Asus U7, I have a £150 budget for speakers and card, the U7 is £75 and the Creative SB Z is £50

Headphones are HyperX Clouds

I've read that to get surround through my headphones you need SBX on
 
Relentless81 said:
No not yet, I'm debating getting one or the Asus U7, I have a £150 budget for speakers and card, the U7 is £75 and the Creative SB Z is £50

Headphones are HyperX Clouds

I've read that to get surround through my headphones you need SBX on
Click to expand...

Oh I did not realise you did not already have a Soundcard, just out of interest why are you using SBX?

Do me a favour and in BF4 or CSGO or any FPS game just try it out turn of SBX and see if sounds any different, it sounds clearer to find people's position but i am not sure if that is placebo.
 
I'm not as I dont have a soundcard, I ordered one and it arrives today, I want to try virtual surround so I'll be trying with it with SBX on at first and see how I get on

As far as I understand it I will need windows speakers set to 5.1 anyway for SBX to do its thing, I believe that with SBX off you will only hear 2.0 of the 5.1 channels, please tell me if I'm wrong but after much reading thats how I understand it
 
Yes that's correct. 5.1 output is needed so that SBX can work. Creative use SBX for 5.1 speakers as well, albeit slightly different variants for speaker and headphone modes. They did the same with their previous X-Fi cards, which used CMSS 3D. That had to be enabled for 5.1 speakers to work, then you enabled or disabled headphone, depending on whether you wanted to use headphones or speakers.

Similar again, when using Dolby Headphone on Xonar sound cards, the channels need to be set to 6 or 8, which is 5.1 or 7.1. Same needed if using 5.1 speakers. In the case of Xonar cards though, Dolby Headphone is only used for headphones.

If you want to use stereo, then just set the output to 2 channel and disable SBX. It's pretty much the same story for all sound cards.
 
Great thanks, the Soundblaster Z has arrived so I'll be installing it soon

So what about 5.1 SBX Enabled to 2.0 speaker setup, does it work in the same way the Headphone setting does?

I have 5.1 speakers currently but will be going 2.0 in the near future
 
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Relentless81 said:
I'm not as I dont have a soundcard, I ordered one and it arrives today, I want to try virtual surround so I'll be trying with it with SBX on at first and see how I get on

As far as I understand it I will need windows speakers set to 5.1 anyway for SBX to do its thing, I believe that with SBX off you will only hear 2.0 of the 5.1 channels, please tell me if I'm wrong but after much reading thats how I understand it
Click to expand...

Okay so I am just an idiot, I put the volume in CSGO way too low and so I could not hear the positions of people's footsteps, but the virtualisation was working fine, So yes put surround up to 100% in SBX and leave it at that.
 
Relentless81 said:
Great thanks, the Soundblaster Z has arrived so I'll be installing it soon

So what about 5.1 SBX Enabled to 2.0 speaker setup, does it work in the same way the Headphone setting does?

I have 5.1 speakers currently but will be going 2.0 in the near future
Click to expand...

No point having SBX on or 5.1 output if you are using stereo speakers. If you are wondering whether you'd get a similar kind of effect with stereo speakers as when using headphones with SBX, then no it won't work very well at all. SBX, Dolby Headphone, etc, use audio cues to trick your brain into thinking sounds appear to be coming from different directions within the headphones. That can only really work effectively with headphones, because they encompass your ears. Speaker placement varies, your head's position in relation to the speakers varies, and the sound can only come from one direction; in front.

Dolby do have a feature which is found on some Xonar cards, which is supposed to give a surround kind of effect with just stereo speakers. I did try it a few years ago with a Xonar Essence ST, and in my opinion, the effect was rubbish.
 
That makes sense, although that means if I get some 2.0 studio speakers to then use SBX on my headphones for gaming I'll have to keep changing the windows settings from 2.0 to 5.1 for the headphones + SBX and reverse it back again for the 2.0 Stereo speakers

Also in game settings would need to be changed every time

With 5.1 speakers and Stereo headphones it seems much easier as you can leave Windows in 5.1 permanently, leave the game set to output 5.1 permanently and just flick between Headphones + SBX in the driver and back to 5.1 speakers with no SBX for just the speakers which is much easier

Seems odd that having 2.0 speakers would be much more complicated
 
You should be able to switch between 5.1 and stereo in the sound card control panel. I'll be astounded if you can't, because that's how it worked for the X-Fi cards and also for Xonar cards. It's quick and simple. No need to touch the Windows speaker settings.

You'd still need to change in game though, if you're going to use headset as well as speakers when playing games. Although, maybe no reason why shouldn't just leave it on 5.1 I guess in game.
 
If you have access to the MM, I have some Edifier Studio 1280T speakers sat in my wardrobe collecting dust - boxed and ready to go!
 
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