difference with hi-fi gaming headsets and virtual 7.1 gaming headsets

[sector]

Hi, I have a question about gaming headsets. Iv been looking around for a new headset, but bumped into a problem. There seem to be 2 major headset technologies as of right now that are hitting the top of all charts, Hi-fi gaming headsets like the ATH-ADG1 from Audio-technica and the 7.1 gaming headsets such as the PC 363D from Sennhiser. So i look around at reviews mostly and try to find a difference and i specific garner of games that there made for, for example FPS multiplayers like cod or BF4 or campaign adventure types like Assassins creed or tomb raider, but i cant find anything. Could someone please tell me the difference between them.  (note i do know i little bit about how they work so dont get to deep into that)

[BoredErica]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/18617-the-audio-boards-frequently-asked-questions-pre-answered/

 

CTRL+F "Surround".

[Lays]

The ATH-ADG1 is a massive ripoff, it's a $150 headphone(AD700X) with a mic on it they charge $300 for, probably even more in other countries.

[Mooshi]

How many ears do you have? Two. How many cups are there? Two. Real stereo trumps fake surround.

[FloRolf]

I just got my new DT880s and heard the Vitual Barbershop thing again and OMG. Sounded way clearer and more natural as with my 7.1 g930s.

[creatip123]

Hi, I have a question about gaming headsets. Iv been looking around for a new headset, but bumped into a problem. There seem to be 2 major headset technologies as of right now that are hitting the top of all charts, Hi-fi gaming headsets like the ATH-ADG1 from Audio-technica and the 7.1 gaming headsets such as the PC 363D from Sennhiser. So i look around at reviews mostly and try to find a difference and i specific garner of games that there made for, for example FPS multiplayers like cod or BF4 or campaign adventure types like Assassins creed or tomb raider, but i cant find anything. Could someone please tell me the difference between them.  (note i do know i little bit about how they work so dont get to deep into that)

 

Well, if you've already known about how they work, then you should also know about third party virtual surround sound programs, like the Razer surround, and first party virtual surround sound, the games' built-in audio engines. Games' built-in audio engines are quite good actually, because they're one of the selling points of a game (nobody would want to get an FPS game with shitty sound engines)

 

 

How many ears do you have? Two. How many cups are there? Two. Real stereo trumps fake surround.

 

Actually 'fake surround' (virtual surround) IS stereo. It gives crossfeeds, delays, and reverbs to the sound signals to give HRTF effect to the original sound, then output it to stereo channels. 

When you're playing a game (FPS mostly), notice the sound is different when a character is talking, if you face him/her, compared to if you face away from him/her. That's HRTF from the games' built-in audio engine, i.e. virtual surround. Without that fake surround, everything would sound the same. The character's voice would sound the exact same when he/she is talking far or close to you, facing you or facing away from you, etc. 

[BoredErica]

I'm not letting a stupid headset decide how my virtual surround ought to be implemented.

[Mooshi]

-snip-

 

I use stereo headphones (Ortofon 02 to be specific) and I can easily pinpoint where the sounds are coming from in this vid.

 

 

Surround side is neat, but humans hear in stereo with left and right "channels". It's more up to the sound guy to work their magic with the audio.

[creatip123]

I use stereo headphones (Ortofon 02 to be specific) and I can easily pinpoint where the sounds are coming from in this vid.

 

 

Surround side is neat, but humans hear in stereo with left and right "channels". It's more up to the sound guy to work their magic with the audio.

 

Yep, I know that video, also posted that in some other topics I usually use that video to show that more than 2 drivers of a headphone is not needed, though, not talking about virtual surround, which also only use 2 channels/drivers

 

However it's not the same in video games. In regular videos/movies/recordings like that, they use binaural microphones, usually 2 mics separated about the width of a human head, with silicon ears attached to them, to record the scene. The mics record all the crosfeeds, delays, and reverbs of the real scene on the fly. In short, there are no HRTF interactions involved. There's nothing the listener can do to make the sound change (in HRTF context, not in EQ or similar context, of course)

 

In video games, it'd be far too much to record each and every sounds according to the many possibilities of interactions from the gamer. Like I said before, the sounds from a speaking character is different according to different interactions of the gamer. Now imagine if they have a sound file for each possibilities. 1 file of the speech recorded as if it's coming from the front, 1 file of the same speech recorded as if it's coming from the back, from the left, right, far away, and so forth. That's only 1 speech. Then you have all the SFX, like footsteps, opening doors, gunshots, screams, etc. You'd have Gigabytes of sound files alone.

 

So instead, they record 1 sound file, and then, according to the gamer's interaction, apply HRTF effects (the crossfeeds, delays, reverbs, panning, etc) to the sound file. That way, they'd only need 1 sound file and a set of HRTF sound algorithm, far more efficient. This whole algorithm = fake surround = virtual surround. Many people don't realize that they're already using virtual surround when gaming, because it's already built-in to the game itself, in its audio engine. 

 

Now, virtual surround headsets (the ones that come with a dongle, not the ones with multiple drivers and audio plugs) IS stereo headsets. They only got 2 audio channels and 2 drivers. The difference is, they got their own DSP device, that dongle thingy, to implement their own virtual surround algorithm. Take ANY stereo headphone, headset, IEM, etc, be it a $10 headphone, or $1500 HD800, plug it to the PC via that dongle thingy, and it becomes a virtual surround headphone/headset. It's that dongle thingy that's the virtual surround device, not the headphone/headset.

 

So if you're saying there's no need of the 'true' surround headsets, the ones with multiple drivers, yeap, I agree. However, the OP wasn't asking about those 'true' surround headsets, but virtual surround headsets, which, if you don't have that in a game (especially FPS), well the game would sound very very lame....

 

Now, the reason why people here usually advise against virtual headsets, and recommend stereo headphone/set is not because virtual surround is not needed, but rather because:

 

- modern games already got their own virtual surround sound engines, and they're getting better over time, so a virtual surround headphone/set might be redundant

- the DSP thingy is overpriced, making the price of a virtual surround headset quite high compared to regular stereo headphone/set

- in some cases, the built-in virtual surround added with the headset's virtual surround can become too much, making the surround audio a bad, instead of good experience

[BoredErica]

Tl;dr summary:

Virtual barbershop showcases binaural recording which game engines don't do. You're often still stuck with virtual surround, but screw the stuff from the headsets.

 

Done.

[Silent_Xaxal]

Surround sound in headsets is one of those weird scenarios where virtual (IE Simulated) is superior to authentic (IE Actual). 

 

In any and all cases, hifi-gaming headsets make for better sound than 7.1 because of this. (Though you can get equivalent for less with two separate solutions, though use cases may vary. A lot of us in the forum are speaking in reference to a PC Gaming standpoint).