USB Soundcard with VSS or dedicated AMP/DAC stack for FPS gaming?

ronferri

ronferri

ronferri

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Question: i just bought AKG K702, AD900x, and HE-4XX for competitive fps gaming.

I'm trying to figure out which route to take to complete the setup:

1. USB soundcard with Virtual Surround features, just in case i need them. (My best options are SoundblasterX G6 or X7 or Senn GSX 1000. Do you agree?)

OR

2. Dedicated stack of amp and dac like JDS EL DAC + Massdrop THX AAA 789 balanced amp (future proof investment that allows me to upgrade to more demanding balanced planar headphones like the Argon MK3 BUT lacks any VSS features at DAC level so i would only play in stereo mode. Can I still use software VSS engine in this scenario, e.g. HeSuvi, just for single player games? If not, can i skip the DAC and output processed VSS signal from my onboard card directly to the amp via the standard line-outs on the laptop?)

Option 2 is way more expensive but opens up the cans and brings them to life, reportedly better than a USB soundcard. I can't decide between 1 and 2, strictly for competitive FPS gaming in Battlefield and occasional single player immersive gaming.
 
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Just forget heavily brand and marketing hype overpriced Scamheiser GSX.
It doesn't have any good DAC and especially it's lacking in any real headphone amplifier.
It uses cheap Conexant CX20745, which is meant for cheap phones and tablets:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sennheiser-gsx-1000-1200-impressions.824923/page-30#post-13504383
http://dtsheet.com/doc/1214288/conexant-cx20745
https://prom-electric.ru/media/CX20745_ds.pdf
Basically £30-40 budget level Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX have better DAC and its headphone output is at level of that cheap tablet/phone.

With same pricing logic SoundBlasterX G6 should cost far beyond £500.
Something you would be eager to shell out, right?


But for accuracy of immersion Creative's head shape customizable Super X-Fi is definitely the way best shot:
We hear in 3D with two ears, because shape of the head (+pinnae) causes direction dependant changes to signal received by both ears from sound source.
And you may have noticed that there's some serious lack of standardizing in head shape of people you meet.
So obviously all average head shape based HRTF algorithms are more or less compromises for most people.
If game sounds had been progressing even remotely at rate of graphics, we would have had customized HRTFs decade ago.

For its possibilities in gaming Creative has just been unfortunately slow in bringing Super X-Fi to sound cards and so far Sound Blaster X3 is only sound card with it.
While SB X3's hardware is clearly below SBX G6, it certainly beats GSX by big amount.


Because of customizing for individual listener there wouldn't be much of point in listening Super X-Fi game recordings if you could find ones.
But here's recordings of Creative's fixed HRTF.
Fair first minute of this is good quick headphone test with sounds at different directions and distances:
Should be pretty darn nice feeling with K702.
And for comparison stereo sound BF4 gaming:
More BF4 recordings.

And this recording from game Singularity tells especially well how badly standard speaker stereo sound works with headphones.
Stereo sound:
HRTF/Binaural sound simulation:
Even left-right immersion doesn't work properly with sounds inside left or right ear or in center of the head.
Simply because without any binaural cues brain doesn't know where else to position sounds.
Stil want to think about stereo sound gaming with headphones?


If your head shape differs from average decreasing immersion Super X-Fi could do lot better.
AKG K702 developed for neutral and accurate sound is one of the best headphones for binaural gaming, so you can be sure that it's not about it.
(one of the headphones I own)

Creative's Super X-Fi actually has also headphone profiles to take at least some "quirks" of the headphones into account to better maintain accuracy of binaural cues:
https://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=200121&c


As for those headphones K702 is certain killer choise for gaming, if comfort is good for your head.
AD900 has less accurate reproduction with worser control with lot more ringing in 300Hz square wave and impulse response.
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AKGK702.pdf
https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/AudioTechnicaATHAD900.pdf

For gaming you better forget all headphone test of "audiophiles":
1. Human hearing is overall really crappy as any absolute measuring instrument.
What we hear consciously is only small and heavily filtered part of all data received by ears.​
2. Most people favour inaccurate sound, because of both personally developed preferences and literal brainwashing from hype.
Lots of expensive "audiophile" cans aren't even tuned for accurate reproduction. (like famous for music HD600-serie Sennheisers)​
3. And stereo music simply doesn't even really care about accuracy of reproduction and forgives lot without sounding bad.​

I once got chance to test one gaming headset and while stereo music sounded lot better than I expected with kinda "agressive" front row feeling in say rock.
But those binaural sound gaming recordings felt like having head in bucket under water!
(no feel of distance and separation at all)
 
Thanks Esat. So you suggest i go with the USB soundcard route and not the VSS software + External DAC + External Amp route? and your USB soundcard of choice is the X3 with SX-FI technology for competitive gaming?

Just making sure I understood your final recommendation.
 
Ah, another EsaT rant against the GSX 1000. Apparently those of us who like it and give a good review shouldn't be trusted because user reviews are unreliable because:

"Thinking ability of average consumer is falling to such level that lots of them would no doubt give bad reviews to pencil, because they couldn't figure out how to sharpen it..." - EsaT

While then proceeding to give a very detailed user review of a Creative product, which, given his logic that user reviews are unreliable, should not be relied upon, no? @ronferri I refer you to the GSX 1000 thread where there are some sound tests to listen to with your headphones that may prove useful to you.

For gaming and productivity, the ease of switching from speakers to headphones, the easy control of a bit of EQ, and control over the level of reverb; attracted me to it. For me, out of all the sound solutions i've tried, it had the best spatial positioning which was important to me. However I'm just an average consumer and probably can't review a pencil...
 
Wegason said:
Ah, another EsaT rant against the GSX 1000. Apparently those of us who like it and give a good review shouldn't be trusted because user reviews are unreliable because:

"Thinking ability of average consumer is falling to such level that lots of them would no doubt give bad reviews to pencil, because they couldn't figure out how to sharpen it..." - EsaT

While then proceeding to give a very detailed user review of a Creative product, which, given his logic that user reviews are unreliable, should not be relied upon, no? @ronferri I refer you to the GSX 1000 thread where there are some sound tests to listen to with your headphones that may prove useful to you.

For gaming and productivity, the ease of switching from speakers to headphones, the easy control of a bit of EQ, and control over the level of reverb; attracted me to it. For me, out of all the sound solutions i've tried, it had the best spatial positioning which was important to me. However I'm just an average consumer and probably can't review a pencil...
Click to expand...

Thanks for those links to the demo videos. The GSX actually sounds quite impressive - there is clearly an improvement in postional audio (I listened using 712 pro's). Does the GSX only do a surround when the source audio is 5.1 channels or more in game?

Is there any latency with the mic when using it in listen/sidetone mode?
 
No, according to Sennheiser it uses its binaural algorithm to create a 7.1 environment from game audio. The important thing is to set it as receiving 7.1 from Windows and that the in game audio setting is set to headphones and it will do the rest. I was impressed by it, found it better than my creative sound card or Dolby Atmos.
 
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