RPGWiZaRD
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2010
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I think this needs a discussion for sure, IMO it's the most noteworthy change for Windows 10 Creators Update. I'm a person with great experience in this field having experience from all these software pseudo surround configs: CMSS-3D, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Atmos, THX TruStudio Pro, SBX Surround, Razer Surround.
Since the Creators Update, there showed up some new tab for "spatial sound" where options "Windows Sonic" and "Dolby Atmos" become available as well as a checkbox for "Virtual 7.1 surround sound".
Here's my personal findings so far:
* Enabling these options limits you to 48kHz samplerate and 16bit bit depth and "Stereo" speaker config. Changing any of these settings will automatically disable the spatial sound settings and Windows itself adjusts to those settings when enabling them. This is something I'd personally wish was improved in the future to allow more flexibility as the sound volume I've noticed drops considerably with 48kHz vs 44.1kHz in some games (from top of my head for example Skyrim, Far Cry 3).
* Virtual 7.1 surround sound checkbox I think is recommended to use with both options at all times, much like with similarly named setting on a SoundBlaster G5 or E5 USB soundcard, this is probably some kind of setting that allows proper multichannel processing of a game's audio and then downmixed into your stereo headphones and this affects the way soundstage and positioning is percieved. What this does is to noticeably expand soundstaging to be much larger and improved smoothness in how the audio is percieved to be moving from one side to another as well as improving the sense of depth to the soundstaging.
Windows Sonic:
Expands soundstage with noticeably clearer positioning. This isn't the same as simply using 5.1 or 7.1 speaker option in the past Windows versions in favor for stereo on a pair of stereo headphones, it clearly improves on positioning and soundstaging one step further, seems to be some HRTF tweaks of some sort (YMMV). The best thing is, it does so without affecting sound quality at any noticeable amount which is many of these "virtual surround" settings shortcomings, especially for the more sound quality concerned invidual who rather get as much positioning improvement with the least possible sound quality hit possible. If so, then this option is perfect for you.
Dolby Atmos for headphones:
Compared to Windows Sonic, I can instantly say, it's not as good. What it does okay job at is to allow pinpointing of directions but it's most other aspects it falls short to Windows Sonic: the soundstage expansiveness is greatly reduced, more "closed-in"-sounding (aka. closed headphones vs open headphones effect), sounds are percieved to appearing closer to you and the depth is lacking. It perhaps biggest weakness together with the less expansive soundstaging is the accuracy of percieving distance to the sounds, it's often difficult to tell how far away the sounds are coming from. In Unreal Tournament for example I sometimes thought a rocket launcher was much closer to me than it truly was. From a sound quality standpoint it's also slightly worse, adding a bit of that typical "processed" sound you can notice with many other surround sound algorithms (SBX Surround etc) but the impact is still very subtle, it still roughly SBX Surround ~ slightly better in fact but compared to Windows Sonic which doesn't have any obvious impact, it still comes out as second when it comes to being able to process the audio as natural sounding as possible.
If my time allows during weekend or whenever (pretty busy with my hobby of promoting newcomers producers on YouTube), I may attempt to do some more in-depth comparison by recording or using some old Demorec recording from Unreal Tournament 3 or UT2k4 (a gaming session that has been recorded so when loading up the recording I'll be able to play the exact same scene over and over again with the exact same stuff happening, making it the ideal way of comparing various sound settings). I currently own SoundBlaster G5, SoundBlaster ZxR, ASUS Essence STX II and have Realtek ALC1150 onboard chips for comparison, so if I was really keen could do some kind of comparison but we'll see, certainly won't promise anything.
I think this added spatial sound is a huge deal for 2 reasons, one is improved positional sound for VR applications and second, the built-in surround sound into Windows means even if you get a more HiFi audio quality oriented USB Dac with only stereo output, you should be able to get decent surround sound experience and this opens up a huge amount of options for gamers. Personally I always grabbed a soundcard with 5.1/7.1 support for my computer to be able to get proper multichannel mixing for gaming. But I'd gladly have someone with stereo-only USB DACs confirm that it allows you to use the spatial sound settings also with that as I currently don't own one.
Since the Creators Update, there showed up some new tab for "spatial sound" where options "Windows Sonic" and "Dolby Atmos" become available as well as a checkbox for "Virtual 7.1 surround sound".
Here's my personal findings so far:
* Enabling these options limits you to 48kHz samplerate and 16bit bit depth and "Stereo" speaker config. Changing any of these settings will automatically disable the spatial sound settings and Windows itself adjusts to those settings when enabling them. This is something I'd personally wish was improved in the future to allow more flexibility as the sound volume I've noticed drops considerably with 48kHz vs 44.1kHz in some games (from top of my head for example Skyrim, Far Cry 3).
* Virtual 7.1 surround sound checkbox I think is recommended to use with both options at all times, much like with similarly named setting on a SoundBlaster G5 or E5 USB soundcard, this is probably some kind of setting that allows proper multichannel processing of a game's audio and then downmixed into your stereo headphones and this affects the way soundstage and positioning is percieved. What this does is to noticeably expand soundstaging to be much larger and improved smoothness in how the audio is percieved to be moving from one side to another as well as improving the sense of depth to the soundstaging.
Windows Sonic:
Expands soundstage with noticeably clearer positioning. This isn't the same as simply using 5.1 or 7.1 speaker option in the past Windows versions in favor for stereo on a pair of stereo headphones, it clearly improves on positioning and soundstaging one step further, seems to be some HRTF tweaks of some sort (YMMV). The best thing is, it does so without affecting sound quality at any noticeable amount which is many of these "virtual surround" settings shortcomings, especially for the more sound quality concerned invidual who rather get as much positioning improvement with the least possible sound quality hit possible. If so, then this option is perfect for you.
Dolby Atmos for headphones:
Compared to Windows Sonic, I can instantly say, it's not as good. What it does okay job at is to allow pinpointing of directions but it's most other aspects it falls short to Windows Sonic: the soundstage expansiveness is greatly reduced, more "closed-in"-sounding (aka. closed headphones vs open headphones effect), sounds are percieved to appearing closer to you and the depth is lacking. It perhaps biggest weakness together with the less expansive soundstaging is the accuracy of percieving distance to the sounds, it's often difficult to tell how far away the sounds are coming from. In Unreal Tournament for example I sometimes thought a rocket launcher was much closer to me than it truly was. From a sound quality standpoint it's also slightly worse, adding a bit of that typical "processed" sound you can notice with many other surround sound algorithms (SBX Surround etc) but the impact is still very subtle, it still roughly SBX Surround ~ slightly better in fact but compared to Windows Sonic which doesn't have any obvious impact, it still comes out as second when it comes to being able to process the audio as natural sounding as possible.
If my time allows during weekend or whenever (pretty busy with my hobby of promoting newcomers producers on YouTube), I may attempt to do some more in-depth comparison by recording or using some old Demorec recording from Unreal Tournament 3 or UT2k4 (a gaming session that has been recorded so when loading up the recording I'll be able to play the exact same scene over and over again with the exact same stuff happening, making it the ideal way of comparing various sound settings). I currently own SoundBlaster G5, SoundBlaster ZxR, ASUS Essence STX II and have Realtek ALC1150 onboard chips for comparison, so if I was really keen could do some kind of comparison but we'll see, certainly won't promise anything.
I think this added spatial sound is a huge deal for 2 reasons, one is improved positional sound for VR applications and second, the built-in surround sound into Windows means even if you get a more HiFi audio quality oriented USB Dac with only stereo output, you should be able to get decent surround sound experience and this opens up a huge amount of options for gamers. Personally I always grabbed a soundcard with 5.1/7.1 support for my computer to be able to get proper multichannel mixing for gaming. But I'd gladly have someone with stereo-only USB DACs confirm that it allows you to use the spatial sound settings also with that as I currently don't own one.