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Not real surround on Void Pro Wireless?


Phantorang

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From what I understand, the Dolby Headphone isn't real actual surround with 7.1 speakers, its just 2 speakers running on software to imitate surround sound. Then why market the headphones as being surround?

 

I could just as well just buy any stereo headphones and use software to imitate surround, or?

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I could just as well just buy any stereo headphones and use software to imitate surround, or?

 

That is what they all are. Headphones have two two speakers cups. You have two ears. I think at some point a company tried to launch a "retaining ring" with 6 speakers suspended around the user's head. Fortunately, they left the subwoofer on the floor. Nevertheless, apparently there were complaints about the weight. You can google up other people's reviews of headphones with various surround software programs vs the one release with "7 discrete drivers". Not surprisingly, the comments are mixed all around. Sound processing is subjective and it's your brain making the evaluations.

 

The Corsair series is designed to work with the existing RGB frame work, offers a distinctive style, and integrates with the iCUE software. You can decide for yourself if that is of value or not, but if you are looking to quibble about marketing language, you will surely drown in the ocean of audiophile opinions and mantras.

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I thought surround headphones had 7.1 speakers in each ear, it wouldn't be necessary to have the speakers around your head. But ok, doesn't matter, its 2 speakers total and they simulate surround.

 

No. A few companies have tried with what most people felt were average or indistinguishable results - at best. The other was a joke, but illustrates the problem. "Surround sound" is what our/your brain thinks is surround sound. When you hear it, you are comparing the effect to your cognitive "sound maps" and it either matches to some degree (sounds good) or doesn't and seems artificial. Most people's idea of what surround "sounds like" comes from their familiar environments. For a lot of people, that is a movie theater or these days you may have it in your living room with 6 + 1 speakers physically ringed around the room. However, that is not the only source of surround sound. If you go to a concert hall, the room has been designed to fill the entire space. While the symphony is in front of you, the sound is all around to some degree. When you here audiophiles opine away about a spacious soundstage or precise imagining, they are really referring to the ability of the two driver headphones to create a 3D sound image. Typically the person with the $3000 Dolby Atmos home theater systems finds headphones utterly lacking and "artificial", while the guy with the $3000 set of electrostatic headphones rolls on the floor laughing about trying to create the same experience with 6 drivers in your ear. It's what your used to.

 

A lot depends on your intended application. If you are playing a FPS shooter and trying to place footsteps or gunshots, you would really like to know if the sound was 10 ft behind and two steps left. Can 6 + 1 speakers ringed around the room produce that? Well, that depends on the software they are using to create it and then produce it during the game. The game still has to map the sound to your specific speaker configuration run signal delays for the distances from speaker to human head. There are only 2 rear speakers in a 7.1 system. It still has a lot of space to try and fill. There is a software element no matter what. On the other hand, if you are looking for a cinematic experience like the movie theater, 6 + 1 speakers may fill your room as you expect. Wearing headphones is different, but things like Dolby surround were designed to imitate the experience. On the positive side, headphones are a bit more immersive since you can't hear the person next to you scarfing down their popcorn. It's good enough that some people prefer them to loud, boomy speakers.

 

Whether you use 7 drivers or 2, there is always software processing in surround sound since you are attempting to create a 3-D soundstage that exists or was conceived somewhere else, and then recreate it in your brain. The only kind of surround sound is "simulated" unless you are actually standing in the middle of a fire fight. The idea that 6 or 7 tiny little drivers in your ear is automatically better than two doesn't really hold up since both are dependent on software processing to create the 3D sound image. The driver is still millimeters from your ear and the signal must be altered to try and create the illusion of distance. So then you need to know if the 7.1 surround programming was created for a distance of 0 or more likely for a living room size application. The 7.1 headphone has to use software to try and balance the software processing from the room sized 7.1 sound programming. You need to look at each product individually and remember sound evaluations are extremely subjective.

Edited by c-attack
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