an actual squirrel

Dolby atmos is a way to store 3d audio data digitally. It is done in a way so it can scale to a number of different speaker layouts.
 
It is like the text on this website. If you have a higher resolution monitor, then you get sharper text. But you aren't going to get the quality of a 4k display on a 1080p monitor, even if both displays are viewing the same website. Similarly, you don't get the spatial quality of a 7.1.2 system with just two speakers natively, even if both are playing the same atmos audio.
 
The speakers may have some processing that allows them to give more spatial information, but that is separate from what dolby atmos is.

And to be honest it's silly to not have binaural stereo baked into more games, humans hear in stereo and you can emulate all the interaural differences and spectral pinnae cues extremely easily with modern technology. It would literally be one plugin that you can drag and drop into any game engine, it's not that hard.
 
Stick in an option to disable it if you use speakers and voila, you have yourself completely realistic surround sound exactly as the human ears and brain expect it.

The bit depth and sampling frequency can lower the inherent noise in the digital format. Once you are working with 24 bit audio, for playback, the bottleneck won't be the format, the bottleneck will be the dac quality, since no dac actually has an effective 24 bit resolution (the best dacs are going to be around 21 bits).
 
It is more useful for post work, since you can boost something low in the recording, and you don't have to worry as much about noise. It is similar to the example brought up about recording in more than 4k, so you can zoom in without as much quality loss.

Between the format and the dac, the dac will always be the bottleneck at 24 bit. There aren't dacs you can buy with 24 bit performance (144db dynamic range), it is like an engineering impossibility. According to audiosciencereview, that dac has 115db dynamic range, or around 19 bits of resolution.

So, here is what I think is happening - you increased the volume too much. There is a limit to how high the volume can be represented digitally. If you exceed this, you will have a distorted waveform that causes these types of audio problems. When you use a bass boost, you are increasing the volume. When you combine that with loud source audio and 100% system volume, then you can exceed the maximum limit. Try keeping the windows volume at 50% and increasing the volume on the speakers themselves.

This to me sounds like it might be a physical connection problem rather than a software problem. Double check that you have connected the cable from the case to the motherboard correctly. And then double check that the headphone cable is fully plugged into the case.

So, here is what I think is happening - you increased the volume too much. There is a limit to how high the volume can be represented digitally. If you exceed this, you will have a distorted waveform that causes these types of audio problems. When you use a bass boost, you are increasing the volume. When you combine that with loud source audio and 100% system volume, then you can exceed the maximum limit. Try keeping the windows volume at 50% and increasing the volume on the speakers themselves.

This video isn't great. Upward firing speakers will bounce sounds off the ceiling for the height channels in  3d audio playback, but those aren't what people are referring to as virtual surround sound. Virtual surround sound is when you use binaural audio to stuff in directional information that otherwise can't be gotten through speaker placement alone.

I'm an advocate for technologies like sbx surround. They are still somewhat niche at this time, but I think a lot of people don't comprehend the limitations of standard stereo audio for gaming and don't understand that these technologies are a way for the game to convey more audio information to headphone users.
 
The g6 is interesting because it was reviewed on audiosciencereview. It has a level of performance that really would have warranted $500+ a decade ago. Considering that headphones like the hd650 is almost two decades old, it is actually pretty humbling to think that with an hd6xx from massdrop and a g6, you can match end game setups from the mid/late 2000s for so little money.

You're going to have to check the voltage on the headphone output to get an idea of whether you will have volume problems. The best thing to do is to just get the headphones and then try them with a variety of content. If you then have volume problems, you will know with certainty that you need a headphone amp.
 
But also, the asus software might have gain settings which allow for even higher power output from the motherboard.

The unfortunate thing with the gsx 1000 is the amp is rather underpowered sounds great though. It should be fine for the 58x but higher impedance beyers or any power hungry cans and planars will probably require more power so if you wish and like the 990. And is not loud enough you can still hook up an amp to it as well 
 

@merco @Falenkor
I'll just chime in on the stereo vs virtual 7.1 part. Normal stereo only has two directions, left and right. With 7.1 audio, you have front, side, and back pairs of channels, along with a center channel. So those 7 directions are a pretty big step up from 2 directions. So that's the first concept to understand - that 7.1 has more data than regular stereo audio.
 
The other concept is how spatial hearing works. Human beings only have two ears, but they can perceive more than 2 directions. This seems like it shouldn't be possible, but it happens because of things like how the sound physically interacts with people's head and ears, and differences between how one ear hears something compared to the other; these attributes end up encoding the direction the sound comes from, which the brain will decode to get the direction. So you don't need sounds actually physically coming from those directions, as long as you have the encoding.
 
Now put the two concepts together, and you have the basis for virtual 7.1 headphones. You start with the 7.1 audio which contains more information than stereo. That information can't normally exist on headphones, but once you add in the encoding, then it suddenly can.
 
For the practical benefits of this, look at this video that compares stereo to virtual surround in pubg. It was made using the in game hrtf option, but it works pretty much the same way. Note what I said earlier about how stereo only has left and right, and look at the types of problems demonstrated in the video.
 

I mean, you have the headphones and the motherboard, so you could tell us. If you find yourself often at 100% volume and wishing you could go higher, then you will know that you needed a headphone amp.
 
You generally want output impedance to be as low as possible. You will see that for all the good headphone amps, the output impedance will be under 2 ohms. But also, the motherboard may have different output impedance than the spec listed for the realtek chip since the board may have additional stuff following the chip. So that's not a good guide since there can be so much variation depending on the implementation.

Usually with good sound cards, they use a multilayer pcb, and the outer layers are used as a shield, with all the traces hidden with the inner layers. That generally should do it.
 
The ultimate solution is fiber optics. So, using toslink to an external dac. Then there is no electrical path from the pc to the dac anymore.

I'm a big fan of the gsx 1000. Intuitive controls and a well written manual go a long way, in addition to the good quality of the 7.1 to binaural conversion imo.
 
I think you probably can get away with just 1v for the hd 660. In general, people greatly overestimate how much power they need for headphones.

Yea, there are weird complications with cases. If you use the radiator fans as a front intake, then the cpu cooling is likely going to be better on the aio just because the air outside the case is cooler, especially if you have like a 300w gpu. But then the lack of negative pressure above the gpu and the warmer case temps end up making the graphics card run hotter, afaik.
 
I personally will tend to go with an aio when possible, just because the idea of 1+ kg of weight hanging off the motherboard socket is pretty disconcerting. And the flexibility in radiator placement gives you a lot of control over the air flow pattern in your case.

Yea, there are weird complications with cases. If you use the radiator fans as a front intake, then the cpu cooling is likely going to be better on the aio just because the air outside the case is cooler, especially if you have like a 300w gpu. But then the lack of negative pressure above the gpu and the warmer case temps end up making the graphics card run hotter, afaik.
 
I personally will tend to go with an aio when possible, just because the idea of 1+ kg of weight hanging off the motherboard socket is pretty disconcerting. And the flexibility in radiator placement gives you a lot of control over the air flow pattern in your case.

It's literally not even possible to distinguish those directions on headphones most of the time, because it's not standard practice for the games themselves to have a system for outputting height.

I am not so keen on schiit audio. In the early 2010's, they had this widespread reputation as being high performance, but there was no real cop on the beat during this period to actually verify this. More recently, there has been a surge of interest in benchmarking audio products, and a lot of those early schiit products were revealed to be poor, even by the standards of the time. So there is this unsavory smoke and mirrors type of feeling I get with the company. That being said, each new product gets a clean slate and is judged by its own merits.
 
 

@Metallus97 @rice guru
 
Okay everyone, this is probably the most misunderstood topic in all of gaming, leaving gpu motion blur as a distant second imo. Contrary to popular belief, virtual surround sound is actually a good thing. What we are talking about here is using hrtf filters on top of game sounds to represent their position in the game world. Without them, you only have left and right directions in stereo audio on headphones. You can still deduce other directions by performing certain maneuvers, but it is a competitive advantage to have virtual surround sound and let the sounds come with more directional information.
 
Certain games are now coming with virtual surround sound options inside them, allowing all headphone users to have virtual surround sound regardless of hardware/software. The most prominent are CSGO's advanced 3d processing, Overwatch's Dolby Atmos for Headphones, and PUBG's HRTF. Call of Duty Modern Warfare doesn't have virtual surround sound per se, but it works well with the ones built into the windows spatial sound options in windows 10 (which are not turned on by default btw).
 
Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite, and I would say the majority of games don't have virtual surround sound options. However, games do support surround sound output. That output has additional directional information that can be used with a virtual surround sound dsp, such as the one that comes with something like the sennheiser gsx 1000 or the free software called hesuvi, to create a better headphone mix.
 
Not helping matters is that virtual surround sound is something of an acquired taste. I'd liken it to 60 fps video and the soap opera effect. Intellectually, we all understand that 60 fps is more information than 24 fps. But if you watch a 60 fps movie, it looks really wrong because you have been conditioned to only accept 24 fps for movies. Similarly, if you have never listened to binaural audio on headphones, it can be strange with material that you are expecting to sound a certain way. If you go in naively, with no preconceptions, I think you can get used to it really fast.

@Metallus97 @rice guru
 
Okay everyone, this is probably the most misunderstood topic in all of gaming, leaving gpu motion blur as a distant second imo. Contrary to popular belief, virtual surround sound is actually a good thing. What we are talking about here is using hrtf filters on top of game sounds to represent their position in the game world. Without them, you only have left and right directions in stereo audio on headphones. You can still deduce other directions by performing certain maneuvers, but it is a competitive advantage to have virtual surround sound and let the sounds come with more directional information.
 
Certain games are now coming with virtual surround sound options inside them, allowing all headphone users to have virtual surround sound regardless of hardware/software. The most prominent are CSGO's advanced 3d processing, Overwatch's Dolby Atmos for Headphones, and PUBG's HRTF. Call of Duty Modern Warfare doesn't have virtual surround sound per se, but it works well with the ones built into the windows spatial sound options in windows 10 (which are not turned on by default btw).
 
Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite, and I would say the majority of games don't have virtual surround sound options. However, games do support surround sound output. That output has additional directional information that can be used with a virtual surround sound dsp, such as the one that comes with something like the sennheiser gsx 1000 or the free software called hesuvi, to create a better headphone mix.
 
Not helping matters is that virtual surround sound is something of an acquired taste. I'd liken it to 60 fps video and the soap opera effect. Intellectually, we all understand that 60 fps is more information than 24 fps. But if you watch a 60 fps movie, it looks really wrong because you have been conditioned to only accept 24 fps for movies. Similarly, if you have never listened to binaural audio on headphones, it can be strange with material that you are expecting to sound a certain way. If you go in naively, with no preconceptions, I think you can get used to it really fast.

So, you want something with DDL. The asus xonar dx does do this when configured properly. Alternatively, you might be able to find modded realtek drivers with DDL functionality for your current motherboard.
 
This is a very niche subject, and I am surprised that there are two threads about this now lol.

Hesuvi is a free option but requires a bit of tinkering

Overwatch has a "dolby atmos for headphones", pubg has an "hrtf" setting, csgo has hrtf under the "advanced 3d audio processing" setting . These are virtual surround sound settings, so there may well be many high level players using virtual surround sound, which is much more accessible when it is a setting in the game. However. when these type of options aren't available, then something like virtual 7.1 is needed for similar benefits.
 
I'm a big proponent of using virtual surround sound, and I think it would surprise most laypeople how logical the case for using virtual 7.1 over a plain stereo mix is. When you have discrete front and back channels, it gives you the opportunity to distinguish these directions in situations where a plain stereo mix can not. And if a game were to assume front facing stereo speakers, this would further reduce the amount of directional information from audio panning. In these two areas, you can see objective advantages with working with a virtual 7.1 mix over a regular stereo mix.
 
Now, some people do have problems with subjective quality of virtual surround sound, particularly if the algorithm is simulating the reverb of a room, which does otherwise help with externalization (the sensation that sounds are coming from outside the headphones). But I've never viewed this as a deal breaker, since with repeated exposure, you can adapt to it, and it'll eventually just sound pretty normal.

Overwatch has a "dolby atmos for headphones", pubg has an "hrtf" setting, csgo has hrtf under the "advanced 3d audio processing" setting . These are virtual surround sound settings, so there may well be many high level players using virtual surround sound, which is much more accessible when it is a setting in the game. However. when these type of options aren't available, then something like virtual 7.1 is needed for similar benefits.
 
I'm a big proponent of using virtual surround sound, and I think it would surprise most laypeople how logical the case for using virtual 7.1 over a plain stereo mix is. When you have discrete front and back channels, it gives you the opportunity to distinguish these directions in situations where a plain stereo mix can not. And if a game were to assume front facing stereo speakers, this would further reduce the amount of directional information from audio panning. In these two areas, you can see objective advantages with working with a virtual 7.1 mix over a regular stereo mix.
 
Now, some people do have problems with subjective quality of virtual surround sound, particularly if the algorithm is simulating the reverb of a room, which does otherwise help with externalization (the sensation that sounds are coming from outside the headphones). But I've never viewed this as a deal breaker, since with repeated exposure, you can adapt to it, and it'll eventually just sound pretty normal.