Quote:Reveal your secrets! I must know if I can upgrade my (modded into 595) HD 555s!
(Looking at around $200 headphones though....man I'm going to be broke after all this...)
If you have a pair of 595s those are already high end headphones.
For anyone in the market for new headphones I would recommend:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826402014
Audiophile grade components, easily some of the best headphones ever made and they are a steal at that price (when they first came on the market they were triple that).
But if you have successfully modded your 555s into 595s then you already have a pair that is just as good if not better. Anything past a 595 is almost pointless in my opinion. Huge mountains of cash for extremely small improvements that I doubt you will even be able to notice, especially with low end hardware feeding the signal. Use that $200 to buy a high end audio card instead.
Audiophile grade headphones easily go into the thousands of dollars range but there is little to no point in buying them without a good audio card or headphone amp + external DAC to feed them a clean signal free of electrical noise. And even then the benefits over a good $200 pair are unlikely to be noticed by human ears.
Oh and by the way you should get this monitor instead of the one I originally recommended:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/09/viewsonic-makes-3d-easy-with-new-console-friendly-monitor-1.ars
It will be on the market soon and it's $150 cheaper so that should give you some money to buy and audio card with.
Ah,and ya know,i can just get like a GTX600 series card when i'll need more power instead of another 580 : p
So,this card:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132014
right? The PCI and PCI-E versions are exactly equal in terms of performance?
And are those headphones 7.1?
Quote:So,this card:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132014
right? The PCI and PCI-E versions are exactly equal in terms of performance?
Yes. But keep in mind you need a PCI slot on your mobo to use it. This might not be a problem for you now but in the future when PCI has gone the way of the dodo you might be shedding manly tears as you put your $200 audio card to rest because it is not compatible with pci-e.
Quote:And are those headphones 7.1?
Technically no. Surround sound headphones are a marketing gimmick at best.
They usually refer to the use of software in the drivers (software) to simulate surround sound using stereo ouput (which can be done with ANY stereo headphones).
Or some of them have the drivers (hardware that emits the sound waves) pointed at a slight angle instead of straight at the ear canal. This causes the sound waves to bounce around the outside of the ear for awhile until they get funneled into the ear canal by the shape of the ear. Unlike regular headphones which fire the sound waves directly into the ear canal by pointing the drivers right at them. The result is it sounds like the sound source is coming from further away (like a speaker placed a few feet away from you in the room) instead of right next to your ears (since your brain measures distance of audio sources by using visual/auditory delay cues and the design of these headphones delays the waves from reaching your ears awhile just like a speaker placed a few feet away would).
Although this design creates a more "spacious" feeling like you would get from speakers it still can't mimic the ability of a surround sound speaker setup to make sound sources sound like they are coming from different directions, that must be done through software (which can be done with any headphones). Without special software it will just sound like you have two speakers, one several feet to your left and another several feet to your right, which doesn't sound that great to be honest.
This design also reduces the sound quality. The primary reason that headphones produce better quality sound than speakers is that the waves reach your ears very quickly, before they begin to deteriorate and change. By not firing the sound directly into the ear canal and adding a delay you reduce this advantage that headphones have.
Headphones built this way also tend to be more expensive since the design is less common/custom and requires some extra R & D. So they try to make up for it by cutting back on hardware quality usually so they can sell it at an affordable price. Because of this most (like 98%) of "surround sound headphones" do not have this design and are regular "stereo" headphones that simply include software for virtual surround sound functionality as I discussed above. This kind of software is included with pretty much all audio card drivers and these days even integrated audio chipsets are beginning to have it.
Just go for quality headphones and use software if you want surround sound (although it won't be real surround sound since that can only be done with a speaker system). There is no such thing as a surround sound headphone (5 or more drivers in different directions), it's just marketing language bs used to pass off inferior hardware as something worth buying.
ASUS audio cards like the one you linked use "Dolby Headphone" for this by the way. X-FI has a different method called CMSS-3D since creative has never been a big fan of dolby for some reason. Also SRS and DTS have there own solutions. And many modern games with advanced audio engines like BFBC2 have there own methods built into the game. Dolby headphone has the ability for you to control how spacious it feels by setting the virtual room size to small, medium, or large.
(09-17-2011, 08:15 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:So,this card:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132014
right? The PCI and PCI-E versions are exactly equal in terms of performance?
Yes. But keep in mind you need a PCI slot on your mobo to use it. This might not be a problem for you now but in the future when PCI has gone the way of the dodo you might be shedding manly tears as you put your $200 audio card to rest because it is not compatible with pci-e.
Quote:And are those headphones 7.1?
Technically no. Surround sound headphones are a marketing gimmick at best.
They usually refer to the use of software in the drivers (software) to simulate surround sound using stereo ouput (which can be done with ANY stereo headphones).
Or some of them have the drivers (hardware that emits the sound waves) pointed at a slight angle instead of straight at the ear canal. This causes the sound waves to bounce around the outside of the ear for awhile until they get funneled into the ear canal by the shape of the ear. Unlike regular headphones which fire the sound waves directly into the ear canal by pointing the drivers right at them. The result is it sounds like the sound source is coming from further away (like a speaker placed a few feet away from you in the room) instead of right next to your ears (since your brain measures distance of audio sources by using visual/auditory delay cues and the design of these headphones delays the waves from reaching your ears awhile just like a speaker placed a few feet away would).
Although this design creates a more "spacious" feeling like you would get from speakers it still can't mimic the ability of a surround sound speaker setup to make sound sources sound like they are coming from different directions, that must be done through software (which can be done with any headphones). Without special software it will just sound like you have two speakers, one several feet to your left and another several feet to your right, which doesn't sound that great to be honest.
This design also reduces the sound quality. The primary reason that headphones produce better quality sound than speakers is that the waves reach your ears very quickly, before they begin to deteriorate and change. By not firing the sound directly into the ear canal and adding a delay you reduce this advantage that headphones have.
Headphones built this way also tend to be more expensive since the design is less common/custom and requires some extra R & D. So they try to make up for it by cutting back on hardware quality usually so they can sell it at an affordable price. Because of this most (like 98%) of "surround sound headphones" do not have this design and are regular "stereo" headphones that simply include software for virtual surround sound functionality as I discussed above. This kind of software is included with pretty much all audio card drivers and these days even integrated audio chipsets are beginning to have it.
Just go for quality headphones and use software if you want surround sound (although it won't be real surround sound since that can only be done with a speaker system). There is no such thing as a surround sound headphone (5 or more drivers in different directions), it's just marketing language bs used to pass off inferior hardware as something worth buying.
ASUS audio cards like the one you linked use "Dolby Headphone" for this by the way. X-FI has a different method called CMSS-3D since creative has never been a big fan of dolby for some reason. Also SRS and DTS have there own solutions. And many modern games with advanced audio engines like BFBC2 have there own methods built into the game. Dolby headphone has the ability for you to control how spacious it feels by setting the virtual room size to small, medium, or large.
Hmm,well i guess i'll wait for the PCI-E version to get back in stock.
My mobo has a PCI slot but it's right under my PCI-E x16 which i want to use for a Blackmagic Intensity Pro.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=13-131-702-Z08&SpinSet=13-131-702-RS&ISList=13-131-702-Z06%2c13-131-702-Z07%2c13-131-702-Z08%2c13-131-702-Z09%2c13-131-702-Z10&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16813131702&Depa=0&WaterMark=1&Description=ASUS%20SABERTOOTH%20P67%20%28REV%203.0%29%20LGA%201155%20Intel%20P67%20SATA%206Gb%2fs%20USB%203.0%20ATX%20Intel%20Motherboard
Also,what's SRS and DTS?
Quote:Hmm,well i guess i'll wait for the PCI-E version to get back in stock.
My mobo has a PCI slot but it's right under my PCI-E x16 which i want to use for a Blackmagic Intensity Pro.
Isn't the Blackmagic Intensity Pro PCI-e x1 not PCI?
Does your GTX 580 take up 2 slots or 3?
If it takes up two slots put the blackmagic card below in the slot below your video card and put the pci-e version of the audio card in the slot above the video card. Unless I'm missing something here.
Quote:Also,what's SRS and DTS?
Some companies that make audio software and codecs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRS_Labs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS_%28sound_system%29
(09-17-2011, 01:46 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:Hmm,well i guess i'll wait for the PCI-E version to get back in stock.
My mobo has a PCI slot but it's right under my PCI-E x16 which i want to use for a Blackmagic Intensity Pro.
Isn't the Blackmagic Intensity Pro PCI-e x1 not PCI?
Does your GTX 580 take up 2 slots or 3?
If it takes up two slots put the blackmagic card below in the slot below your video card and put the pci-e version of the audio card in the slot above the video card. Unless I'm missing something here.
Quote:Also,what's SRS and DTS?
Some companies that make audio software and codecs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRS_Labs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS_%28sound_system%29
Oh,alright.
Well,i think i'll just PM you from now on since we're being off-topic and the TC's questions have been answered.