Best 5.1 Headphones?

lilpoopypants said:
And also to futher drive the point home... plug one of your ears really well, close your eyes and have someone snap their fingers around your head... yep, you still can percieve sound in 3D even with just one ear.
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Who did you have snap?

It has nothing to do with how many ears you have but how the sound is getting to you.
And its not possible when you have stereo speakers for the sound to come from more than one source.. you can dick with algorithms all day long but it wont cut it in the end.
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I just can't figure out what you are trying to say here.


There is no substitute for real speakers.
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Nowhere did I mention fake speakers.


Its like holding your arm out to the right side of your head and snapping.... now try to figure out a way to make it sound like its coming from the center, or the left of you.. or best yet........ *drumroll*
from behind you. You can snap really loud and try to bounce it off the wall behind you if you want...

Yep, good luck!
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Magic has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
 
Lol, well, it's possible to some SMALL extent. Using complicated algorithms to calculate the effects on frequences, volumes, etc reflected off surfaces you can get almost close enough. Even perhaps have a few sounds actually sound like behind or in front.


BTW, that link had practically no information on how this really supposedly gives you true 2D positioning. From what I read, it sounded only like they were saying it was worlds better than the virtual surround you get from all those expensive dolby things and etc, which did make sense and I wouldn't disagree with it.

I still say that if someone touches the front of my left arm, I know the difference from them touching the rear of that same arm. Maybe you can't (you'd best visit a doctor NOW, this is serious!!!) but I have no troubles identifying in 3D where I was touched in fact.


Speaking of 3D, has anyone yet tried to create a speaker system that does ups and downs? I think it would be kind of neat if you could somehow reproduce that correctly for games, especially since games have had ups and downs since the mid to late 90s or so. (Well, even Doom had a rudimentary fake 3D, but it wasn't a very good fake.)

In the end, the problem comes down to the simple fact that with the speakers close together inside a closed container like that, the sounds run together, acoustics are shot and so on like this. It may never be possible to get it perfect, though I have ideas that they should position the speakers as far as physically possible and angle them. Nonetheless, it's going to inevitably be better for 2D positioning than stereo.


EDIT: You can do the snap test yourself. Stick one finger in one ear and move your other hand around your head snapping. Heck, close your eyes while you do this to be sure. Erm, you may wish to be sure no one else is in the room first... Trust me, even without the other ear or your eyes telling you, you CAN tell front from rear. Now, if you move that hand over to the other side and snap, you'll have some troubles hearing it, but you might even hear just a little of whether it's front or rear even.

EDIT2: Ah, if you need a truly objective 3rd party and have a 4.0 or better system, use one of those speaker positional things instead of snapping.
 
jpmkm said:
Are you fucking kidding me? Let me spell it out for you. Read carefully now. Here it comes. I've said it several times before but I'll say it again JUST FOR YOU, since you apparently have a problem with reading everything.

With speakers, both your ears hear sound from BOTH speakers. Your left ear hears sound from the left and right speakers and your right ear hears sound from the left and right speakers. Now here's the kicker. This part is truely mind-blowing. With headphones, your left ear hears ONLY the left channel and your right ear hears ONLY the right channel. No difference, eh? I challenge you to find a difference. It might keep you up all night, but you'll find it eventually.
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No need to get snide.
What you are implying is that you need to hear the sound source with both ears to sense its direction.
I debunked that theory a few times above.

See, with headphones.. even if you turn off the right side, you still know the position of the left speaker.. even if the right one isnt working..

Both ears do not need to hear the sound source for the mind to figure out the source's position in space.

It doesnt matter if you have 6 independant speakers hooked up to each earpiece, or one.

So like I said, 5 point headphones or a 5 point speaker setup.. it doesnt matter.
 
Nazo said:
EDIT: You can do the snap test yourself. Stick one finger in one ear and move your other hand around your head snapping. Heck, close your eyes while you do this to be sure. Erm, you may wish to be sure no one else is in the room first... Trust me, even without the other ear or your eyes telling you, you CAN tell front from rear.
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Of course you can. This discussion is borderline retarded!

It doesnt matter if you strap 6 speakers next to your head, or have them spread out across the room.
The ONLY difference is going to be the effect from sound bouncing off the walls, and POSSIBLY better sound seperation.

What I'm saying is that 5.1 sound is superior to stereo for sound positioning, whether its in a set of headphones or a set of speakers on your floor.

If it required both ears to tell where a source in audio space was coming from, then a man that lost hearing in ear couldnt tell while driving his car if someone had an accident in front of him or behind him??

If this was the case, no one with hearing in one ear would be allowed to drive. It'd be incredibly dangerous, what if a little girl was playing and running out across the street and the mother was screaming.. but the guy who was deaf in one ear just heard screaming.. but had no idea where it was coming from?

Of course he can tell. Your mind can tell where sources are coming from even with one ear.. so hating on 5 point headphoens is fruitless because its absolutely no different than a Pioneer 5.1 Dolby DTS surround system in your living room.
Channel seperation differences based on speaker placement is the only possible difference.

Now, 7.1.. THAT is impossible with headphones of any sort because you cannot obviously put a physically located rear speaker in a earpiece. To many speakers for my taste anyway.

But 5.1 headphones are great!
 
lilpoopypants said:
What you are implying is that you need to hear the sound source with both ears to sense its direction.
I debunked that theory a few times above.
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You debunked it? Whatever your debunking is I'm pretty sure I can double-debunk it. I would like to see some sources that say sound localization is completely and fully possibly with only monaural hearing.

See, with headphones.. even if you turn off the right side, you still know the position of the left speaker.. even if the right one isnt working..
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Well no shit you can tell a sound is coming from the left if only the left channel is active. What you cannot tell is if the sound is forward-left or back-left.

Both ears do not need to hear the sound source for the mind to figure out the source's position in space.
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Again, please cite some sources. I have cited a few websites that support my claims, so it is time that you show some that support your claims.
 
Alright, here you go.
Excerpt from http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/hearing2.htm
The pinna, the outer part of the ear, serves to "catch" the sound waves. Your outer ear is pointed forward and it has a number of curves. This structure helps you determine the direction of a sound. If a sound is coming from behind you or above you, it will bounce off the pinna in a different way than if it is coming from in front of you or below you. This sound reflection alters the pattern of the sound wave. Your brain recognizes distinctive patterns and determines whether the sound is in front of you, behind you, above you or below you.
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Now, theoretically, it could be possible to reproduce those. The problem with this is that the company wishing to do this will have to send someone to measure (with great precision!) the exact shape and size of this part of the customer's ear. Then, the machines would have to, with great precision, reproduce the same effect. You must understand, the brain can't be fooled by something that is "close enough." It works with very minute changes. I do suppose it might be possible to give the user a very precice calibration system and after a few hours they might just get it set right. In the meantime, they've just had to spend QUITE a lot of money and time for that virtual surround that is so precise. Only audiophiles are willing to do this.

In reality, if you can get angles and other such variables correct, then by using multiple speakers in a headset you can indeed do this correctly by letting the ears work in the way they were made to instead of trying to do their work for them.

EDIT: In case that wasn't clear, let me make it. EVERY person's ears are shaped differently. Just like every other part of your body basically down to even things like finger prints. This is why the system would need a complicated precision calibration process or need to be custom made. Maybe technology will someday reach the point where it can just sort of scan the ear and calibrate itself, making true 3D sound possible even through (properly set up) stereo speakers potentially. That future isn't here yet.
 
The key word in that explanation is 'helps'. Maybe you should continue reading that article(at least until the next paragraph, which very concisely describes what I've been trying to tell you this entire thread). In actuality, sound localization via the pinnae is not very useful unless binaural sound localization fails(such as when the sound is directly above or below you). Also, while howstuffworks is very interesting and entertaining, it is not the most academic source of information.

edit: for an academic view of monaural sound localization(sound localization using only the pinnae), read this.
 
Maybe YOU should continue reading that particular paragraph yourself... It explicitely says horizontal! Guess which dimension is "horizontal" to your ears? That's right, left and right are horizontal... NOT front and back!

I assumed this part was obvious, so I didn't bother with it. I'm sorry.
 
Nazo said:
Maybe YOU should continue reading that particular paragraph yourself... It explicitely says horizontal! Guess which dimension is "horizontal" to your ears? That's right, left and right are horizontal... NOT front and back!

I assumed this part was obvious, so I didn't bother with it. I'm sorry.
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I think you have a different definition of horizontal. I always interpretted horizontal as front, back, left, and right. They are all on the same plane. Vertical would be up and down. Keep in mind that howstuffworks is written for the general population and is not academic in nature, so the terms used are geared towards regular people, not ear experts.
 
Your website says the same thing in more complicated methods. The brain uses things such as changing tones/etc to decipher 3D positioning. It's really easy to play around with tones and see if the person thinks there is a difference. Much harder to make them think a sound is in a precice location that it is not.

Remember, the same paragraph in the very next sentence specifically says left and right. No mention of front and back. And they never said horizontal plane. We are talking about just the horizontal dimention. To get an idea of how this works, imagine yourself in a 2D world for a moment (picture one of those topdown games superimposed on a grid with yourself at point 0.) The X axis is left and right. Your brain gets an idea of the horizontal position of a variable position sound by using the differences between how loud your left ear hears it versus your right. Tell me how this gives you the Y axis? Now, we know what position it is in the X axis, all we have to do is combine this data with the other data received through the pinna where the sound is shaped a certain way. Utilizing the two together, we have X,Y and even Z coordinates (also through pinna shaping) though that particular axis isn't needed in this example.


Anyway, to summarize, it's physically possible to do this through a stereo source, but you must precicely reproduce the effects of the pinna on noise shaping or the user will mistakenly think the sound is somewhere it is not. Due to the fact that every person has differently shaped ears (perhaps in a few cases each one is slightly different!) it's impossible to do this in a normal commercial/private setting. A scientist could easily do this with only a small research grant I'm sure.


(Don't know how it double posted like that. Hrm. Still not used to the positions of the buttons on this mouse.)
 
Nazo said:
EDIT2: Well, that's an interesting way to discuss this. Fine, I will utilize the same method. Remember, the same paragraph in the very next sentence specifically says left and right. No mention of front and back.

And they never said horizontal plane. We are talking about just the horizontal dimention. To get an idea of how this works, imagine yourself in a 2D world for a moment (picture one of those topdown games superimposed on a grid with yourself at point 0.) The X axis is left and right. Your brain gets an idea of the horizontal position of a variable position sound by using the differences between how loud your left ear hears it versus your right. Tell me how this gives you the Y axis? Now, we know what position it is in the X axis, all we have to do is combine this data with the other data received through the pinna where the sound is shaped a certain way. Utilizing the two together, we have X,Y and even Z coordinates (also through pinna shaping) though that particular axis isn't needed in this example.
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Wow. You are really going out on a limb here. The next sentence was AN EXAMPLE. Of course it is going to be specific.

When is horizontal not a plane? If we talk about it like it is a dimension then what is the third dimension? We have horizontal and vertical and what else? You are really just talking out of your ass and your explanation does not mean anything. If you want me to take your argument seriously then you are going to have to substantiate it(with something more than howstuffworks). If you don't want to back it up then I'm just going to disregard it.

btw, they never said horizontal dimension either. They said horizontal position.
 
You don't know your dimensions?

Horizontal (left/right), vertical (front/rear), depth (up/down)

Technically, there's a fourth dimension utilized in all of this, time, but let's not get too into that.

I want to clear one thing up, though most of you already realize this probably. Stereo provides ONE dimension -- one axis for positioning. 4.0 and up all currently provide only TWO dimension, NOT three. Two positional axis. 3D audio refers to the fact that a proper system (soundcard 3d acceleration or software) will calculate reflections off of the surfaces in the game world, however, what you get out of your speakers is 2D or even 1D if you are using stereo. So let's not get confused about thinking we are looking at planes here. You require at least 3 points to create a plane, not a mere two.
 
Sorry, I've never seen those definitions. Are those definitions specific to hearing or are they general definitions?
 
You can rename the axis depending on what you are defining when it is easier. For example, a top-down game will use up and down when in a fps game those same directions are forward and back. Nonetheless, the dimensions are the same, merely the way they are looked at is different. In other words, the top down is STILL 2D whether you look at it as up/down or as forward/back. You can add effects to make it seem kind of 3D, but it won't fool you, merely look better.

EDIT: Quit changing things and removing the original text... In my previous statement, I was referring to your question about the meaning of depth. I assume you still mean the same? If not you will need to be more specific.
 
Err, I was kinda hoping getting helpful posts from getting the best out of 5.1 headphones...
 
Sounds good to me. We are drifting offtopic, though. In the real world, do you consider horizontal to be a plane? If a pencil is on a table, do you consider it to be horizontal? What if the pencil was rotated 90 degrees? Is it still horizontal? Or is it now vertical or depth?

edit: yeah I was asking the same basic question, just more generally.
 
ShinAli said:
Err, I was kinda hoping getting helpful posts from getting the best out of 5.1 headphones...
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I'm trying to help you here, I really am.
 
ShinAli said:
Err, I was kinda hoping getting helpful posts from getting the best out of 5.1 headphones...
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You have. Ok, I know we are kind of off on a tangent, but, the point still remains true enough. While some people will insist that 5.1 headphones are automatically crap no matter what (in fact, a few haven't even tried them) in general, they are more accurate than virtual surround can give you over a stereo headset. It's still your choice as to which you prefer, but, a GOOD pair of 5.1 headphones will have better 2D positioning than any virtualized stereo headphones due to the physics of the thing. However, cheap headsets won't be better by much at all (I can still tell front from rear on these things, but not well, and in games it's only a little help, but, at least I can tell better than with stereo.) From what people are saying, the medusas are great, but, if you have the money to blow, you really want the pioneer or sony headsets.

EDIT: The pencil exists in 3 dimensions. Draw a square on a peice of paper. Put two points at random places in that square. Does point A have any depth? (Not counting the actual atoms making up the graphite.) Those two points exist in those two dimensions where one is probably in front of the other, to the left or the right. What you wish to do is remove the Y axis and interpolate the Y positions of A and B. In fact, A might be at -1 while B is as +1. Remove the Y and they are in the same place. Very hard to get this right, now isn't it?
 
Nazo said:
EDIT: The pencil exists in 3 dimensions. Draw a square on a peice of paper. Put two points at random places in that square. Does point A have any depth? (Not counting the actual atoms making up the graphite.)
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In the case of the pencil, is horizontal not a plane? How would you define the dimensions in the case of the pencil?

edit: quit editting your shit after I reply to it! :p
 
The pencil exists in all physical dimensions. It is not horizontal or vertical alone, but all of the above. If you turn it, you have moved it along horizontal as well as vertical axis and, technically speaking, if you look at the atomic level, the height axis as well to some tiny extent. You can define the turning with those first two, but you can't define it with just one, now can you?

I use the dots on the peice of paper on purpose. Set the paper on the table so that it points away from you and you might call the axis the same thing than if you pick up the paper and hold it so that the points go left/right and up/down to you. This does not change the dimensions, only your perceptions. In other words, what I'm saying is that the definitions do not change, merely how you perceive them.
 
Okay, so what is your point to all this talk about points and dimensions? Are you still talking about that horizontal reference on howstuffworks? How can you be sure that that usage of horizontal fits with your definition of it and not with the generally accepted usage meaning a plane?
 
I'm going to start a new topic on this sort of thing so we can stop bothering him since this is starting to move away from the discussion about the accuracy and benefits/losses of the headphones. Just give me a minute here.
 
Okay that's a good idea. I'm off to bed now but I'll be back in the morning.
 
I certainly hope that either or both of you can actually make a point in this next thread or it will be a very short one. ;)



Edit: I stand corrected.
It was even shorter then I had imagined it to be.
 
Mister X said:
I think a few of you people should read this Headwize article (note who authored it).
http://headwize.com/tech/aureal1_tech.htm
and this one
http://headwize.com/articles/soh_art.htm
then this one
http://headwize.com/tech/sshd_tech.htm
and finally this one.
http://headwize.com/tech/gardner_tech.htm
Once you have read all of those and a few of the other articles in the Headwize Library you will see just how far off base you all are. ;)
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I think you need to summarize it for them.
 
Mister X said:
I certainly hope that either or both of you can actually make a point in this next thread or it will be a very short one. ;)



Edit: I stand corrected.
It was even shorter then I had imagined it to be.
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I can't find it. What did I miss?

edit: Well I didn't miss much. ;)
 
I was actually TRYING to make a point to all the people who think that 5.1 headphones are pure gimick and crap, not just the one person, as well as prove that while 5.1 headphones are hardly great, when it comes to some things like gaming you are still better off with them for your 3D sound capable games than stereo headphones.
 
Nazo said:
I was actually TRYING to make a point to all the people who think that 5.1 headphones are pure gimick and crap, not just the one person, as well as prove that while 5.1 headphones are hardly great, when it comes to some things like gaming you are still better off with them for your 3D sound capable games than stereo headphones.
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maybe. most likely not
 
Treyshadow said:
The Medusa 5.1 headphones actually sound ok.

They are not as good as Sennheiser HD580's, or even AKG 240s

They have very crappy foam earcups with fake leather on them. They are round, but are small compared to the 580's.

They DO sound better than any of the basic U.S. available 5.1 headphones, but you have to go down to the local radioshack and by a 5v power converter for the power adapter on the 5.1 box. It only comes with the Euro Plug.

They sound better than the Zalmans
They sound better than the Kinyo
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I take it that you've actually listened to all of the above headphones and actually own the Medusas then Treyshadow? If you do have a pair of Medusas I have some questions for you:

1) How good is their positioning in games and how do their positioning (left to right and front to back) compare to a) stereo headphones, b) the other 5.1 headphones you've tested, and c) 5.1 speakers?

2) Where did you get them from?

3) How much did they cost?

Thanks.
 
Yes, we can only hope that is better than the Zalmans...

...live shot from Hell.
screamingzalmans.jpg
 
rending?

the 5.1 effect with headphones such as those is generally quite poor. Not as good as stereo positioning. BAH!
 
Ruiner said:
My sis is vacationing in London this week and is bringing me a set of Medusas (40 british pounds shipped to her there). I'll post here when I get them.

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?pa=mchp&page=title&r=ELEC&title=172076
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Yes, please DO post when you get these, or while you're at it, have your sis pick up two more pair for me! ;) That's a nice price being shipped and all for only 40 pounds! Anyway, let us know how they work for you when you get'em, I'm very interested to hear what you think.
 
emorphien said:
I have not learned a new non-technical word in a long time.
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lol. The last time I heard that word was one of the Baldur's gate games: the ghouls say 'rrrrennnd yourrr flesssshhhh'.
 
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