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I have no experience with surround headsets. Are they actually real multi channel or just emulated/virtual?
They're designed to make money. Not more, not less.
3D locating works with stereoscopy, which means ONE signal is heard by TWO receivers and due to the difference in loudness left/ right, signal delay l/ r, frequency change & echos our brain can calculate a signal's location.
A headphone is a closed system meaning each ear hears the signal seperated from each other - It's impossible, physiologically as well as physically, to locate the origin of the signal within the earpiece with just one ear.
What they do is installing multiple substandard, tiny drivers into the earpieces and the surround effect is done by emulation (like with any other steroe headset as this is only possibilty to create three-dimensionallity).
Then they sell it for a high price.
If you want a good advice, buy some decent stereo Headphone with decent drivers. 3D sound is a part of every good 3D application (some doing a good job other not so much).
If you want consitency in your hearing you can try to get some 3D emulation software (as games mostly focus on the loudness l/r and don't calculate the delay).
I have the very same headset that OP has + dedicated 7.1 sound card (Asus Xonar D2/PM 7.1)
And before that I had Razer megalodon which is virtual surround sound and what you say is just not true. If you virtualize the sound to 7.1 and then compare to a true surround you can 'see' the differences. Besides even DSP effects like Dolby HP and Xear 3D that you apply on sound card make the audio much richer and real on the true surround.
And before that I had Razer megalodon which is virtual surround sound and what you say is just not true. If you virtualize the sound to 7.1 and then compare to a true surround you can 'see' the differences. Besides even DSP effects like Dolby HP and Xear 3D that you apply on sound card make the audio much richer and real on the true surround."
Nope. That's like saying the earth is flat.
Look up stereoscopy in wikipedia, ask a doctor, read articles about three-dimensional hearing. It's. not. possible.
Look, I understand that these earphones cost a lot and ppl like to justfy their their spendings however you cannot, literally cannot, locate a signal with one ear and that's what would be neccessary as a headphone is a closed system.
How the sound virtualization is done may differ and maybe the Tiamat has a great virtualization and works better for you - however it has nothing, zero, to do with multiple drivers...
I believe what he is trying to say is that the additional drivers add to the "emulation" of surround. Say you have one driver in each ear, like a normal set of headphones. You can emulate the echo and this and that, but they're all still coming from one driver in each ear. Now imagine you have 5 divers for each ear (such as the Razer tiamat 7.1). You then have many drivers placed in specific locations to increase that "emulation" that you are experiencing. You have a driver to the slight left, the slight right, the dead center, slightly above, and a dedicated bass. With those additional drivers with strategic positioning, combined with the "emulation" (i.e. timing) effect, you get true 7.1 surround, because the sound waves are approaching your ear in the direction and at the angle they would if they were coming from somewhere around you.
Edit: I also have tried the various simulated surround headsets with different software and love the Tiamat 7.1 by far. Give them a try. You can try to science it away all you want (and others will science right back), but if you try them, you will see they are great.
That's the point no matter what driver is sounding, it does sound exactly the same for the ear, no matter if it's the top driver or all together or one big driver.
Our auricle is formed to pass along a signal and push it on the eardrum (that happens frontal), the eardrum itself has no locating function, there's simple no difference if the signal is 1.5cm close 30° to the right or 1.5cm close 30° to left...
Regarding the y-axis or better the intersection in between x- and y-axis, right in front of you/ right behind you, so to say, there's where the frequency change comes into play as the signal loudness is the same and there's no delay on one of the ears.
Now there's a physical phenomen as very high and very low frequencies can penetrate tissue while the 1-2kHz signal is mostly blocked by our auricle when the signal comes right from the back that's how we can differ back/ front signals (echos beside) and now ppl can claim that a driver at the back of your ear is supporting this charakteristics.
However nor the driver is behind the ear neither it is at the back of the head, these few degrees doesn't change a thing plus as I already stated an earpiece is a closed system in which the sound is echoing multiple times (thus carrying every frequency pretty genuine to the eardrum).
"You can try to science it away all you want (and others will science right back)"
I don't science anything away, all I do is telling how we hear sound. And while there isn't any scientific theory cast in stone I would be more then surprised if anyone will "science right back". The way we locate signals and the way our hearing system works is pretty much researched and no one who knows a thing or two about it will argue against.
Maybe ppl try to quote marketing slogans but that's not "sciencing back". That's why I said "That's like saying the earth is flat" - because it's proven wrong.
"but if you try them, you will see they are great"
I doubt I would like the sound of those, however I'm not arguing on the point that they're doing an excellent 3d virtualization all I'm saying is, that has nothing to do with multiple drivers.
Look, companies producing gaming periphery try to come up with expansive (hardware) solutions for problems that nor are hardware based neither complex or expansive to solve and as long as the customers don't demand easy, universal solutions software developer will not feel the need to change anything (btw there are already great binaural virtualization plugins for the unity engine - but no game is using them).
And as you can see, you can talk loud and clear about how we hear and still ppl tend to ignore anatomics facts (I don't force you to but nobody is prevent you from looking up what I just said in wikipedia and you'll understand why "true" "7.1" ain't working).
We have 2 receivers passing along exactly 2 signals to our brain to calculate space... We just need exactly 2 drivers to virtualize three-dimensionalty 1:1 (and btw with binaural recording you can see that that has been done, ofc calculated sound wouldn't be as correct as this form of recording, there're limits, but it can get close).
By the end of the day, if consumers would know more about sound perception, we could all profit from better software with excellent 3D sound no matter if you're using $5 Hama in-ears, $300 beyerdynamics or $1000 Sennheisers (the rest of sounding may and will differ).
*Looks up stereoscopy on wikipedia* Hmm, well this guy is an F'in moron. Unless he's been putting headsets on his freakin' eyes. Try looking up sound localisation on wikipedia and educating yo' big dumb ass.
He could have saved himself the embarrasment by just plugging one ear and realising he could still tell the direction and relative distance of sounds - the method the brain uses that requires both ears is one of many different ways our brain collects localisation information in regards to sounds. News flash, even though you might not realise it, but by bouncing soundwaves off different parts of your ear you can create the illusion of direction and distance. You can do this with simulated, but it's even more effective with multiple differently positioned drivers - and more versatile! If you simulate for one persons ear, it won't have the exact desired effect with another persons ear because we all have slightly varied shapes of ears. If you actually send the soundwaves from a specifically different location, our ears do the job their own way.
Somehow I got the feeling you might be a spoiled 14 year old sitting in front of your razer blackwidow™ (RGB, 16.2 million colours) being furiously mad about my critic to the investion your mother make in your brand new razer tiamat™ 7.1 headphones.
However, you might take this as advice:
1.) If you critizise, read the whole thread before you make a statement otherwise you might come across as an idiot.
2.) If you read something up, try to understand the concept of it and adress it to the problem at hand. otherwise other might think you're uneducated
3.) If you adress someone in a converstation, try to use less insults and swearing, because - even if you would have a valid point - you'll seem to be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to others.
Now to the actual problem. Of course you can "hear" the direction of a sound with one "ear", due to the form of our auricle the sound characteristic differs as some frequencies bounce easily of surfaces while other can penetrate material. As our brain memorize these characteristic it can determine if a sound is coming from the front or our back. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to differ any direction on the y-axis. That works with every headphone by the way.
So does a seccond (third, fourth, fifth) driver in one side help to improve this feeling? Yes, in theory - if the driver would actually BEHIND the auricle it might work and if the soundwaves in the closed system wouldn't BOUNCE it may work.
However in real life the others drivers are only some small degree beside, not enough to actually generate the characteristic of material penetrating/ auricle bouncing AND the sound of each driver is echoed multiple times in a closed headphone and to my knowledge an open multiple driver headphone does not exist.
There are people who say multiple drivers still help a little bit, maybe that's true. I doubt it but maybe it is. However the quality of the 3d-emulation is way more important when it comes to 3d perception than multiple drivers - That's for sure.
And by the end of the day multiple driver headphones are expansive and way inferior to decend stereo headphones when it comes to sound quality.