Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound processing in Headphones

[Cj77]

The good thing about the SoundblasterX G6 is that it takes 7.1 channels of spatial sound information from the game you're using and then mixes it down into 2 channels whilst creating the Virtual Speakers within that - so the advantage should be that it "should" work well for any game that outputs 7.1 channels of sound information once you've optimised the position of all the virtual speakers, like I described in the first post in this thread. For games that had their own Virtual Surround Sound built into the game engines themselves, then you'd flip the SoundblasterX G6 into Stereo only mode (called Direct Mode in the software) which would basically be turning off all the processing features of the G6, because you've already got the Virtual Surround being processed by the game engine. So with the G6 you can use Virtual Surround processing of the G6, or you can instead let the game create the Virtual Surround if the game has that feature built into it. Still though, sound design in the games is bound to be a factor in how good the ultimate "soundscape potential" can be, if the game creators didn't give a sh*t about sound design then it's not gonna be a realistic/good presentation, but the G6 gives you flexibility to either use the virtual surround sound processing in the G6 or instead rely on the games virtual surround processing (if they created that option).

You were talking about IEMs, I've found Truthear Crinacle X Zero to be fantastic for Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound when used with my G6. I was quite surprised actually, I was expecting an IEM to be rubbish at it, but it was probably the best out of all the headphones I've tried. I only have that one IEM, I'm an IEM newbie, but I don't use it because I don't like shoving stuff in my ears and it feels uncomfortable, but they were the best for Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound in my experience. I might advise you to buy a set of those Truthear Crinacle X Zero if you like IEM's. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/truthear-x-crinacle-zero-iem-review.37380/
They're really great for music too.

I’ll definitely have to check it out. Do you think you had more of an advantage with the truthear over the hd800 or any of the headphones you use? And I may just get a sound blaster as well so I can try everything. Is it possible to have the g6 set up with the motu m2 at the same time? The m2 is a pre-amp/dac/interface for my mic

 

[Robbo99999]

I’ll definitely have to check it out. Do you think you had more of an advantage with the truthear over the hd800 or any of the headphones you use? And I may just get a sound blaster as well so I can try everything. Is it possible to have the g6 set up with the motu m2 at the same time? The m2 is a pre-amp/dac/interface for my mic

I don't have the HD800, but I actually think a good IEM is better than a headphone for Virtual Surround Gaming. I think this because I used to think a good soundstage headphone would be the best for it, which correlated with my various experiences of my different headphones (see in my sig), but the Truthear Crinacle X Zero IEM was noticeably better than all of them. Given that you don't need to use EQ on either music nor gaming when using the Truthear Zero, and given it's an absolute tiny fraction of the price of the HD800, then I would try to get a Truthear Crinacle X Zero (the blue version, not the red version as they are different products with different frequency responses), and then send the HD800 back (perhaps use it vs the Truthear to see which works best if you can try the HD800 & return it without hassle).

The SoundblasterX G6 has a mic input, but it's a 3.5mm input. Your Moto M2 has the TRS connections for the mic. I don't think you'll be able to use the Moto M2 with the G6 if you have a mic connected to the M2, because I'm thinking that if you use the G6 with the Moto M2 then you'll have to connect the 3.5mm Line Out from the G6 to the two TRS inputs on the front of the M2, circled red in following pic, which won't leave you anywhere to plug your mic into the M2 (you'd need a 3.5mm jack to TRS cable to connect G6 to Moto M2):

So I think the best option is just to use the G6 and use the 3.5mm mic input on the G6, you can probably find a way to plug your mic into the 3.5mm input of the G6 yeah? The way I'm seeing it you don't need the HD800, and you don't need the M2, and you'll be best with the Truthear Crinacle X Zero Blue combined with SoundblasterX G6 - that's my thoughts on it for a Virtual Surround Gaming setup, and to be honest the Truthear Crinacle X Zero Blue is probably a better solution for enjoying music (it measures a lot better), especially if you're not gonna use EQ.

 

[Robbo99999]

Dude you are the man robbo, I literally went and made an account just to say thanks for starting this thread, I cannot tell you how helpful it has been as a newbie. I’ve been reading through all of your posts on headsets/ vss recently and you are up there with crinicle in my opinion and even more knowledgeable when it comes to competitive gaming which is the only reason I’m interested in audio, thanks so much for taking the time to post all the stuff you have. I’m very interested to see how your test turns out with the front facing speakers on your desk. I imagine that you are corrrect in thinking that you can more precisely align the speakers to where they should be. I wonder though if there will be a trade off? Like ya the speakers may be more accurately placed but can you hear the very subtle details as well when they are not right in your ears?

Hi, I did that experiment with using my JBL 308p speakers for use in Virtual 7.1 Surround gaming when used with my SoundblasterX G6 DAC, I compared them vs using headphones for the same Virtual 7.1 Surround Gaming - basically the headphones are better than the speakers for virtual 7.1 surround sound gaming. Using the speakers I had to change my Surround settings to get them optimised - so I had to run the "Surround" variable in the G6 DAC in the 60's rather than the 30's, for my headphones I use it in the 30's. The accurate treble of the speakers was useful during virtual 7.1 surround fps gaming, but the front to back location was probably better using headphones, and if you can use a headphone that already has a good & smooth treble frequency response then I think you're not gaining anything on that front from the speakers, whilst I found the front/back location to be better when using headphones for virtual 7.1 surround. It was an interesting experiment to do, but I won't be purchasing a set of speakers for my PC gaming setup because the headphones are actually better for that virtual 7.1 surround gaming.

 

[dasdoing]

Haven't tested multi-channel yet (any mediaplayer that can use vst3?), but for the first time I have found a software that can kind of simulate my setup on headphones: dearVR Monitor.
it's late at night and I find myself pulling off my headphones sometimes out of fear my speakers are actually on.

these setting work for me (though my room is not large):

 

[iGude]

Haven't tested multi-channel yet (any mediaplayer that can use vst3?), but for the first time I have found a software that can kind of simulate my setup on headphones: dearVR Monitor.
it's late at night and I find myself pulling off my headphones sometimes out of fear my speakers are actually on.

these setting work for me (though my room is not large):


View attachment 312083

Sounds promising, my I ask which headphones you are using with it?

 

[dasdoing]

Sounds promising, my I ask which headphones you are using with it?

my cheapo SUperlux HD681, but equalized to ISO diffuse field

 

[dasdoing]

Haven't tested multi-channel yet (any mediaplayer that can use vst3?), but for the first time I have found a software that can kind of simulate my setup on headphones: dearVR Monitor.
it's late at night and I find myself pulling off my headphones sometimes out of fear my speakers are actually on.

these setting work for me (though my room is not large):


View attachment 312083

now that I got more used to it, I feel like this matches my real setup more accurately

 

[musica]

Hi, I thought I'd start this thread as a gaming virtual 7.1 surround sound enthusiast in headphones. We can let this thread develop into whatever we like on the topic of Virtual 7.1 Surround Sound processing in headphones, and perhaps I'll continue to edit this first post with links to useful resources or information on this topic that myself & others will find in time. We can talk theory & personal experiences and what works best, anything we want on this topic. Today I've not invested much time in fleshing out this first post with useful information, but I think I'll add to it as it develops, to kick us off here's a very good link to testing 7.1 speakers to validate that you've set up your virtual 7.1 surround system correctly (and even to compare success of different virtual surround processing technologies), it's right at the bottom of the linked page:
https://www2.iis.fraunhofer.de/AAC/multichannel.html
and here's the link to the wav file to test your 7.1 virtual system (I've verified that it's actually using 7.1 channels as I used Equaliser APO to knock out a specific channel and it cut the audio for that virtualised speaker, so it's legit so-to-speak):
https://www2.iis.fraunhofer.de/AAC/7.1auditionOutLeader v2.wav
I've used that file to test my own virtual 7.1 surround system which is based on SoundblasterX G6 and K702 & HD560s Harman EQ'd headphones and for me it works wonderfully in terms of noticing the front/side & back locations. If you own a Soundblaster, then you'd probably use the Surround 0-100 variable to tweak to move the positions of those virtual speakers into the right positions which you'd verify with the test I linked. Those are my additions just for today, but let the experiences & conversations develop, and look forward to recounts of your own experiences, ideas & setups.

I can't understand 0 to 100
which one is best for me, how should I proceed

 

[Robbo99999]

I can't understand 0 to 100
which one is best for me, how should I proceed

The 7.1 channel audio file I linked in the first post of this thread plays all of the speakers one at a time. You'd set Surround to say 20 and then listen to the file with your eyes closed and try to imagine where the sound of that channel is coming from. You keep changing the Surround Variable to a different number until all the channels are in the right position around you - so hopefully you'd find a number from 0-100 on the Surround variable that will enable you to hear each speaker in the correct position around you. Following is where the speakers are positioned in a 7.1 system, I lifted this image from a Dolby website:

So you want to set up the Surround variable to a value that makes it sound like each of the speakers are in the position you see above. It's unlikely that you'll be able to perfectly match this though, and for some people Virtual Surround Sound doesn't work for their brains fullstop! Experiment with different values between 0-100, but in reality I think it's likely you'll end up with a number somewhere between 20-75 I think. But, to be honest you can see in the pic of the speaker positions that Dolby say the speaker position is acceptable to a certain +/- degrees from what you see in that image, so you can see that the front left & right speakers are acceptable between 22-30degrees for physical positioning - it'll probably still be quite hard to get them all in the correct position though, but it's worth trying to get as close as possible to it. In fact I might try finetuning my own settings again because I'm pretty sure I've been trying to get left & right front speaker at 45 degrees when from that pic I should probably just aim for 30 degrees (even a bit less).

 

[musica]

sorry ,everything that is good for dolby suroound games is also good for listening to dolby suroond movies ?

 

[Robbo99999]

sorry ,everything that is good for dolby suroound games is also good for listening to dolby suroond movies ?

Once you've set up the virtual speaker positions like we talked about, then that should be the best settings for both games & movies. I haven't tried it on movies though because I don't use my PC for watching movies, but theoretically those settings should be the best for both.

 

[musica]

the GC7 I can connect it via optical cable to the TV is decoding the dolby coming out of the TV.
Do the same suroond settings as the pc apply ?

 

[Robbo99999]

the GC7 I can connect it via optical cable to the TV is decoding the dolby coming out of the TV.
Do the same suroond settings as the pc apply ?

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking me. But if it's a situation where the GC7 is receiving 7.1 channels of information, then the Surround variable (0-100) that we've talked about in great detail would remain at the same figure you've already decided on that place the virtual speakers in the best most accurate locations. If you've optimised the Surround Variable in the way that I described here (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d-processing-in-headphones.25613/post-1746901) then yes it should theoretically be optimised for both 7.1 Surround Gaming & also 7.1 Surround Movie Watching.

 

[musica]

maybe I'm wrong, but why wasn't the famous three-dimensional sound in APPLE headphones mentioned here?

 

[Robbo99999]

maybe I'm wrong, but why wasn't the famous three-dimensional sound in APPLE headphones mentioned here?

Tell us about it if you want, (maybe the specifics of how it works & their approach), and give some links too. I suppose one problem is that you have to have an Apple headphone, but that's my only contributory point because I don't know anything about it.

 

[musica]

don't know anything about the apple system,I just wanted to understand from those who are more esprto than me if it really is better than the 2 virtual systems I have on myGC7 . there are some users of this forum who are enthusiastic about the pairing TVapple and Apple AirPods .in questo tred
https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-for-films.48163/

 

[Robbo99999]

don't know anything about the apple system,I just wanted to understand from those who are more esprto than me if it really is better than the 2 virtual systems I have on myGC7 . there are some users of this forum who are enthusiastic about the pairing TVapple and Apple AirPods .in questo tred
https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-for-films.48163/

Given you've already got the Soundblaster DAC then I'd experiment with that. My personal opinion is that you'd set it up & optimise the Surround Variable (0-100) like we already discussed, and then that should theoretically work best in both games & movies. I mean try that for movies & see what you think. I noticed in that other thread you linked you're trying a different processing option in your Soundblaster DAC, but my intuition tells me that the advice I already gave you would provide better results. Experiment with it though & see which works best.