Help me win my argument about 5.1 surround headsets!

[woodward98]

OK.  Disclosure:  I know I'm right.   I'm just trying to figure out how to tell my stubborn friend that he drank the kool-aid and doesn't know what he's talking about.  Unfortunately, my rational arguments have fallen on deaf ears and he's moved on to insulting and trolling, indicating that the discussion phase of the argument is over.

 

He's trying to convince me that multi-speaker headsets, like the Turtle Beach AK-R8 or the Zalman ZM-RS6F, impart directionality information of the sound to each ear independently.  He says, "our ears pick up on real sounds differently than synthetic positioning. If I didn't give you any visual cues with a 2-channel headset and had a synthetic sound play behind to your right, you wouldn't be able to tell exactly where it was coming from. Conversely, if I had real surround sound in a room or like with ANY one of those headsets I just mentioned, you would be able to tell exactly where it's coming from because of the way the sound reflects off the shape of your ears, your brain already knows what it's doing with this."  and , "Yes, with 5 speakers for each ear, the shape of your ear and the location of the speaker (for that particular ear cup) is what imparts directionality of the sound."  The Horror...  The Horror....

 

I'm trying to argue that multiple speaker 5.1 or 7.1 surround headsets use technology to trick your brain (sometimes very well) into thinking that this virtual surround is actual surround.  This is done through complex sound imaging by the game or by the sound card.  One ear covered by one ear cup cannot provide significant sound direction.   It it not at all like 5 speakers and a sub in a large room.  By putting on an around-the-ear headset, you isolate each ear and reduce your input to 2 channel:  one for each ear.  Therefore, sounds must be provided to each ear with varied echo, volume, delay (latency), and other processing in order for your brain to think that you're in a surround environment.  

 

People with severe unilateral hearing loss have terrible spacial audio perception.  Kids with unilateral hearing loss, for example, cannot play Marco Polo after taking their hearing aid out to get in the pool.  If his argument were true....  A pair of these 5.1 surround headsets would impart magical audio to their single ear during a game to let them hear the directionality of the sound.

 

I didn't even get into discussing sensorineural vs bone conduction on this one....

 

What do I do or where can I have him read to help show him that 5.1 surround headsets must use virtual surround from either the game or the sound card to provide the much-loved directionality Battlefield 1?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Your ears hear direction based off the delay and different levels. With headphones you can only hear the one speaker in each ear. Those extra speakers can't be used to help hear direction as there only heard from one ear.

[tomoki]

2 minutes ago, woodward98 said:

OK.  Disclosure:  I know I'm right.   I'm just trying to figure out how to tell my stubborn friend that he drank the kool-aid and doesn't know what he's talking about.  Unfortunately, my rational arguments have fallen on deaf ears and he's moved on to insulting and trolling, indicating that the discussion phase of the argument is over.

 

He's trying to convince me that multi-speaker headsets, like the Turtle Beach AK-R8 or the Zalman ZM-RS6F, impart directionality information of the sound to each ear independently.  He says, "our ears pick up on real sounds differently than synthetic positioning. If I didn't give you any visual cues with a 2-channel headset and had a synthetic sound play behind to your right, you wouldn't be able to tell exactly where it was coming from. Conversely, if I had real surround sound in a room or like with ANY one of those headsets I just mentioned, you would be able to tell exactly where it's coming from because of the way the sound reflects off the shape of your ears, your brain already knows what it's doing with this."  and , "Yes, with 5 speakers for each ear, the shape of your ear and the location of the speaker (for that particular ear cup) is what imparts directionality of the sound."  The Horror...  The Horror....

 

I'm trying to argue that multiple speaker 5.1 or 7.1 surround headsets use technology to trick your brain (sometimes very well) into thinking that this virtual surround is actual surround.  This is done through complex sound imaging by the game or by the sound card.  One ear covered by one ear cup cannot provide significant sound direction.   It it not at all like 5 speakers and a sub in a large room.  By putting on an around-the-ear headset, you isolate each ear and reduce your input to 2 channel:  one for each ear.  Therefore, sounds must be provided to each ear with varied echo, volume, delay (latency), and other processing in order for your brain to think that you're in a surround environment.  

 

People with severe unilateral hearing loss have terrible spacial audio perception.  Kids with unilateral hearing loss, for example, cannot play Marco Polo after taking their hearing aid out to get in the pool.  If his argument were true....  A pair of these 5.1 surround headsets would impart magical audio to their single ear during a game to let them hear the directionality of the sound.

 

I didn't even get into discussing sensorineural vs bone conduction on this one....

 

What do I do or where can I have him read to help show him that 5.1 surround headsets must use virtual surround from either the game or the sound card to provide the much-loved directionality Battlefield 1?

Proves that the knowledgeable actually understand what's good and what's not. You're correct and I don't really know what he's thinking. As for what you can do to prove his stubborn head incorrect, just leave him be is the best way to do it I feel. One of my friends' friend.... doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't really accept advice straight up. He overspends on products he doesn't need and doesn't even know how to full utilize. The saddest part is that ...that guy's friend is now asking him to make recommendations and he's screwing everything up. It's only through humiliation will the anal understand how utterly embarrassing it is to not know what they're talking about. Eventually they'll come across someone who will shut them down. 

 

Unfortunately though, even though your audio argument is correct, I feel that you'd have to fight him in a different field that is much more objective. Your friend can "think" and believe he's right all he wants in the audio field because as objective as audio goes, there's a ton of subjectivity. In this case scenario it's purely objective but he's clearly not accepting the results. 

 

Stuff his face with something else and see if he will get it. 

[woodward98]

I know!!  How do I tell him this and have him believe it without the discussion devolving into an insult about my mom?  I looked through the forums, which generally agreed with me, but I didn't see anything on this particular multi-speaker ear cup.

 

[Megah3rtz]

tell him to close his eyes, turn up his volume, and listen. 

 

[manikyath]

tell him this happened:

 

i gave up on reading about two seconds in because he sounds like those people who believe the earth is a flat disk moving up extremely fast.

 

EDIT: and that's coming from someone with a €2000 surround sound system that's usually off in favor of a pair of headphones with *two* speakers

[tomoki]

3 minutes ago, woodward98 said:

I know!!  How do I tell him this and have him believe it without the discussion devolving into an insult about my mom?  I looked through the forums, which generally agreed with me, but I didn't see anything on this particular multi-speaker ear cup.

 

Nah mutli-speaker ear cups have been mentioned before hahaha ~ but that's okay cause it's really easy to miss on reading it if it's not a thread's first question. 

 

You should tell him to join LTT Forums and we can all show him how blatantly ignorant he is...though I think it wouldn't be a matter of shaming him in a way like calling him names. It would mostly be showing him the right way and proving he's wrong. 

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

tell him this happened:

 

i gave up on reading about two seconds in because he sounds like those people who believe the earth is a flat disk moving up extremely fast.

That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that the Earth is a giant ball moving up extremely fast. /s

[manikyath]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that the Earth is a giant ball moving up extremely fast. /s

read up on flat earth society it's hilareous.

3 minutes ago, Megah3rtz said:

tell him to close his eyes, turn up his volume, and listen. 

 

not the greatest example tbh, i prefer this one:

 

[woodward98]

I saw this Virtual Barber video!  I figured that he would put his 5.1 headset on and say, "SEE!  I'm right!"  and still not understand.

 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, woodward98 said:

I saw this Virtual Barber video!  I figured that he would put his 5.1 headset on and say, "SEE!  I'm right!"  and still not understand.

 

make him listen to it with a two-speaker headset.

 

or better yet, if you have physical access to the guy, blindfold him, and make him do a blind a/b check between 5.1 headset and stereo headset.

 

(and after he admits he's an idiot, bop him in the back of the head, and if he doesnt admit, there's always baseball bats)

[JoeCoke]

14 minutes ago, Megah3rtz said:

tell him to close his eyes, turn up his volume, and listen. 

 

Holy crap, that was amazing! How have I not heard anything like that before? Imagine that kind of sound with VR... It would be amazing!

[ARikozuM]

Just now, manikyath said:

read up on flat earth society it's hilareous.

I'm actually fully aware of it. It's interesting and does come with interesting concepts and questions. They're presenting quite a lot of solutions to how we think things are today. Like the Big Bang theory, Bible, and other creation myths, society is taking what it perceives as truth to explain a fundamental question that all humans have "where do we come from" and "why are we here".

 

Fun fact: Galileo was not the first to find that the Earth was round. Eratosthenes found that the Earth was round c. 300BCE and most of the civilized world understood it to be true. It was not until the Catholic (not the Christians) church came to power that we, once again, assumed the world to be flat. Aside from the Roman empire (not the civilization as a whole), the majority of the world understood the planet as round.

 

Funner fact: You wouldn't fall off a flat world due to gravity.

[woodward98]

13 minutes ago, tomoki said:

Nah mutli-speaker ear cups have been mentioned before hahaha ~ but that's okay cause it's really easy to miss on reading it if it's not a thread's first question. 

 

You should tell him to join LTT Forums and we can all show him how blatantly ignorant he is...though I think it wouldn't be a matter of shaming him in a way like calling him names. It would mostly be showing him the right way and proving he's wrong. 

I did read a few..  I didn't see anyone mention the idea that "the shape of the ear" imparts directionality within one ear cup.

[ARikozuM]

3 minutes ago, 2Buck said:

Holy crap, that was amazing! How have I not heard anything like that before? Imagine that kind of sound with VR... It would be amazing!

Play a "Chair in a Room" or "The Visitor".

 

Edit: You'll be whispering and yelling "no, no, no, No, No, NO, NO" within a few minutes.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I'm actually fully aware of it. It's interesting and does come with interesting concepts and questions. They're presenting quite a lot of solutions to how we think things are today. Like the Big Bang theory, Bible, and other creation myths, society is taking what it perceives as truth to explain a fundamental question that all humans have "where do we come from" and "why are we here".

they also come with theories that COMPLETELY oppose other of their own theories.  and lets be honest, in a world where we're within approachable time of going to different planets it's hardly worth even trying to find some correctness in the ideas of someone who is convinced planets arent planets.

[woodward98]

OK....  Now for the full disclosure...  I'm a physician, an anesthesiologist but not an otolaryngologist (ENT surgeon).  I didn't want to throw the whole "9 years of medical school and post-graduate training" thing out there, instead sticking to rational arguments.  FAIL.

 

BTW.  The Earth IS flat.  The universe rotates around the Earth.  Copernicus was crazy as a loon.   Darwin disproved his own theory.

[ARikozuM]

At least it's not Dante's Planets crazy.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, woodward98 said:

BTW.  The Earth IS flat.  The universe rotates around the Earth.  Copernicus was crazy as a loon.   Darwin disproved his own theory.

you better be kidding...

[woodward98]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

you better be kidding...

Hahahaha.  I should have added some superlatives for Donald Trump to make it obvious...