[x7007]

Hi everyone,

As of 2 days ago I have adopted Dolby Atmos for Headphone and been playing around with it non-stop.
You see I currently have an ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card in my Windows 10 machine, and have ALWAYS used Dolby Headphone, specifically the DH-2 setting as I found it had a little more separation without sounding "reverby" to my ears compared to the boxed sound of DH-1.
I have been posting over in the Monolith M1060 thread, but someone suggested I bring my information and experience over here - good idea!

Compared to Dolby Headphone, this is certainly a step up and above to what I am used to.
I have heard Youtube representations of what other DSP's sound like (SBX, GSX, SBZ, DH, CMSS-3D), and this appears to be pretty competitive considering it's $15 vs Creative or Senn's leading hardware based solutions.

I have not bought the full version of this software yet, I am currently on trial and still have 27 days left.

I had some problems initially with some content sounding a bit "off" - this has now been identified as having too much reverb and some sounds being quieter than the mastering intended.
What was the cause? - Allow me to explain.

By default when you enable Dolby Atmos for Headphone and get it all set up, it up-mixes ALL content and it's channels to a 7.1 simulated experience.
I have found that for 5.1 and 7.1 content this works a treat, no complaints really at all.

With 2 channel content however, reverb is introduced and some of the details in the 2 channel mixes are lost or visualised in an extremely quiet way where the environment or situation can appear to sound off or hollow.
Solution? - Allow me to explain.

As with Dolby Headphone, which up-mixes all content up to a 5.1 mix and 7.1 down to a 5.1 mix, content sounds the same in experience regardless without issue, at-least in my experience.
With Dolby Atmos for Headphone, you need to UNCHECK the 7.1 virtualisation box when playing stereo (2 channel) content.

Please remember when you change Atmos settings in the Spatial Audio tab, you generally should have the content closed and not playing, and you should re-open it fresh as in my experience changes do not take effect until a program picks up the new settings fresh from the go, not on the fly.
Immediately you will notice 2 channel content has less reverb, especially noticeable on voices to myself, and the content feels a little "fuller". (Content specific obviously)

I have had SOME content which comes through well from 2.1 to 7.1, but all 2ch content appears to benefit better from just being played without the 7.1 virtualisation.
To my understanding, when you uncheck 7.1 virtualisation, it does a 5.1 up-mix instead, like Dolby Headphone.

Less channels to split the streams into = less room for error with sound level virtualisation and less reverb.

I originally didn't like Atmos for playing music or listening to quite a bit of things, but when you understand how to utilise it, it's fantastic.

One thing that needs to happen, is being able to change channels somehow as currently selecting Dolby Atmos for Headphone defaults your sound channels to 2 channel, which means games that auto select their game track based on the Windows mixer play in stereo, so you need to uncheck 7.1 to get the most out of them.
Hopefully Dolby fixes this somehow so we can select 5.1 and 7.1 so we can utilise full 7.1 virtualisation in games.
Obviously games that allow you manual control of in-game sound channels work fine.

Also remember Atmos won't benefit games with already DSP'd / Binaural audio tracks, I believe Battlefield and Witcher 3 have these built in with some sound option configurations.

Well, I think that's everything I wanted to share, I hope you guys can learn something from this and improve your experience, this is very beneficial to me because I wanted a dedicated high quality DAC / AMP combo but I needed a DSP for gaming / movies and music. (Love how it transforms the sound into a more full presentation)
On a side note, does anyone know if an Aune X1S will benefit my setup vs my current headphone jack from my Xonar Essence STX?

Thanks.

So if I have games/movies/music that are Stereo or 5.1 then I still use ATMOS but disable the 7.1 Virtual . is that correct ?

 

[Malfunkt]

So should I play this game with Stereo set in windows cause that's what Asus card gives me. then set Headphones in BF1 ? that will give me 7.1 or just Stereo ?

If I want 7.1 which one should I choose ? Virtual Surround in the Sound Card drivers + Home Cinema in BF1 ?

With Atmos we should use Headphones also ?

I mean what are our options when we want Stereo only or Stereo Virtual Surround , or 7.1 Headphones Virtual Surround ? or there is just Stereo Virtual Surround. Hard to explain because I don't understand the game engine and we have so many ways to get virtual surround.

For BF1 I recommend this setting:

In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).

If you are going to use Atmos, make sure to enable it in in Spatialization settings. Set BF1 to high quality / full dynamic range audio and 5.1 output. It is possible that the Atmos Heaphone plugin is able to understand the settings without you having to adjust them. Not sure. Really Dolby and Windows needs to make a better case for the benefits and use of Atmos with respect to gaming.

Right now, I'd say Atmos for Headphones is best used as a 5.1/7.1/ virtualizer for watching movies. I'd say the same for Sennheiser's GSX1000.

It's a bit confusing for the consumer. And in some ways companies benefit from this, as they can then sell all manner of gear. But really, a game engine should be able to do a great job with creating simulated HRTF / binaural spatial auditory cues. Some have. CS:Go although not leading in sound design, has an HRTF engine that works quite well. I know Overwatch has Atmos built-in, playable over headphones, but not sure how good that implementation is.

 

[x7007]

For BF1 I recommend this setting:

In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).

If you are going to use Atmos, make sure to enable it in in Spatialization settings. Set BF1 to high quality / full dynamic range audio and 5.1 output. It is possible that the Atmos Heaphone plugin is able to understand the settings without you having to adjust them. Not sure. Really Dolby and Windows needs to make a better case for the benefits and use of Atmos.

Right now, I'd say Atmos for Headphones is best as a 5.1/7.1/ virtualizer for watching movies. I'd say the same for Sennheiser's GSX1000.

It's a bit confusing for the consumer. And in some ways companies benefit from this, as they can then sell all manner of gear. But really, a game engine should be able to do a great job with create simulated HRTF, and binaural spatial auditory cues. Some have. CS:Go although not leading in sound design, its HRTF works quite well. I know Overwatch has Atmos built in, playable over headphones, but not sure how good that implementation is.

Thanks !

Thank god I didn't start playing it, cause I would enable Atmos or Asus Sonic Studio Virtual Surround , not both ofc , and use Home-Cinema .. this would mess up the experience 100% ... now I could start playing it knowing the right settings.

I think the first option is the best as it has Headphones surround already. instead going with Atmos and mixing it up with another settings.

 

[CluckerByte]

So if I have games/movies/music that are Stereo or 5.1 then I still use ATMOS but disable the 7.1 Virtual . is that correct ?

Correct somewhat, 5.1 content to me sounds better with 7.1 enabled which appears to bring more detail and 3D effect.
Try out both and see what you like, 5.1 content without 7.1 virtual seems to also be much quieter.

I prefer 5.1 with 7.1 virtual.

 

[SONICDK]

i bought it the first day after my 24h trial, but i cant enable dolby atmos headphones since,
others with same problem, and is there a fix for it ?

 

[n3cr1d]

Hi guys, any idea if dolby atmos can support 24bit? My audioquest dragonfly usb dac cant support 16bit, only 24bits and i cant select spatial sound because this. Maybe a future update? Thanks!

 

[x7007]

Guys, whoever have it installed and the trial is over, remove Dolby Access, Atmos for Headphones, and the Creative thing it installed, DTS and something.
I had an issue with potplayer the opening of every movie was so slow, took 4-5 sec for the movie to open, on my friend computer and my laptop it was instant, almost same hardware , same windows. without internet ( adapter disabled ) it worked instant !
Short story , I uninstalled all of them and potplayer now opens instant.

so if you don't use it , uninstall it.

 

[mashuto]

For BF1 I recommend this setting:

In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).

If you are going to use Atmos, make sure to enable it in in Spatialization settings. Set BF1 to high quality / full dynamic range audio and 5.1 output. It is possible that the Atmos Heaphone plugin is able to understand the settings without you having to adjust them. Not sure. Really Dolby and Windows needs to make a better case for the benefits and use of Atmos with respect to gaming.

Right now, I'd say Atmos for Headphones is best used as a 5.1/7.1/ virtualizer for watching movies. I'd say the same for Sennheiser's GSX1000.

It's a bit confusing for the consumer. And in some ways companies benefit from this, as they can then sell all manner of gear. But really, a game engine should be able to do a great job with creating simulated HRTF / binaural spatial auditory cues. Some have. CS:Go although not leading in sound design, has an HRTF engine that works quite well. I know Overwatch has Atmos built-in, playable over headphones, but not sure how good that implementation is.

I just jumped aboard here since I had been using DH from my old xonar sound card, but the computer crapped out so I took it as an opportunity to build a new one. As far as positional audio, without any kind of virtualization, bf1 does not give me the best of cues, right and left are fine, but forward and back, not so much.

Also, are your options different than mine? There is no high quality/full dynamic range option, what I have are two options in game. Surround/stereo and sound preset, which lets me choose between war tapes, hi-fi, headphones, etc. There is no way to choose 5.1 output directly, and it is my understanding that there is no way to choose dynamic range directly, though the preset is essentially dynamic range (though with preset names).

I was missing dolby headphone, so I tried out the spatialization settings in windows. Windows sonic sounds artificial and not very full. Dolby atmos for headphones on the other hand sounds pretty nice and seems to be to give me exactly what I am looking for. With 7.1 virtual surround, and my ingame settings set to surround and headphones, I feel like I am getting nice positional audio that doesnt sound crazy over processed.

I dont however know if its truly doing what I want or if its just some kind of placebo effect, but that seemed to be the ticket for me. And since I havent been able to find any concrete information about whether bf1 has any hrtf function built in, I am pretty sure with windows built in atmos for windows, thats what its doing. I am a little hesitant to purchase it only because some have reported they cant choose it anymore after they buy it, but it seems to work. Am I crazy? I keep reading that a lot of people dont like it, but it seems to work well for me.

 

[Clovis559]

I just jumped aboard here since I had been using DH from my old xonar sound card, but the computer crapped out so I took it as an opportunity to build a new one. As far as positional audio, without any kind of virtualization, bf1 does not give me the best of cues, right and left are fine, but forward and back, not so much.

Also, are your options different than mine? There is no high quality/full dynamic range option, what I have are two options in game. Surround/stereo and sound preset, which lets me choose between war tapes, hi-fi, headphones, etc. There is no way to choose 5.1 output directly, and it is my understanding that there is no way to choose dynamic range directly, though the preset is essentially dynamic range (though with preset names).

I was missing dolby headphone, so I tried out the spatialization settings in windows. Windows sonic sounds artificial and not very full. Dolby atmos for headphones on the other hand sounds pretty nice and seems to be to give me exactly what I am looking for. With 7.1 virtual surround, and my ingame settings set to surround and headphones, I feel like I am getting nice positional audio that doesnt sound crazy over processed.

I dont however know if its truly doing what I want or if its just some kind of placebo effect, but that seemed to be the ticket for me. And since I havent been able to find any concrete information about whether bf1 has any hrtf function built in, I am pretty sure with windows built in atmos for windows, thats what its doing. I am a little hesitant to purchase it only because some have reported they cant choose it anymore after they buy it, but it seems to work. Am I crazy? I keep reading that a lot of people dont like it, but it seems to work well for me.

Dolby Access is a lottery. I bought it, I don't have it installed. For some, perfect. For others, nightmare. For me: It came to me fidgeting with it everytime to get it to work, for low benifit since I have and prefer speakers. I've never really experienced any problems with speakers in BF1, if you want to make that jump.

 

[mashuto]

Dolby Access is a lottery. I bought it, I don't have it installed. For some, perfect. For others, nightmare. For me: It came to me fidgeting with it everytime to get it to work, for low benifit since I have and prefer speakers. I've never really experienced any problems with speakers in BF1, if you want to make that jump.

I see. Yea, so far the couple days I have used the trial, I havent had any issues. Now I am worried that when I go to buy it, I will lose it. As far as headphones vs speakers. I much prefer headphones as I find I can usually pinpoint things a lot better. My PC is hooked up to my TV and receiver, but for FPS games, thats less than ideal for me, there is definitely a delay either from the receiver or the tv itself, and playing an fps game from the couch (and potentially with a controller) is just definitely not for me. DH worked well for me in the past, and DA for headphones seems to do the trick so far. Heres to hoping that I dont have any issues when I go to buy it. Plus I am usually talking to a buddy through discord, so headphones with a modmic is again better for me than speakers.

I tried razer surround briefly, but it just made everything sound like a poorly compressed mp3. Lots of artifacts. Windows sonic had a bit of that too, but just make everything sound very tinny. Atmos just seems to be the ticket for me, though I am still not 100% sure how well the positional cues are compared to the old DH implementation I used with my xonar. And my onboard virtual surround doesnt seem to work at all since I am using optical out to a schitt stack.

 

[x7007]

Anyone knows how to fix the issue after I uninstalled it, I can install it, it gives me 30 day trial after I used them all, but it doesn't actually activate it. it says error . any fix ? and the issue is that it doesn't give me an option to actually buy it, so I can use it . just an 30 trial option which doesn't work.

 

[genclaymore]

I got around it by logging out of the email address that had the issue, then log in another one and used that one to get the app to download the headphone part of the app. After it started working, I switched back and now had the option to buy it on original email i was logged into.

But Right now the buy button is disable for the temp being til they fix their issue with the store not letting people buying it, but they have a lot more they should be doing besides that.

 

[DanPerezSax]

I had an issue with DSP artifacts when I first installed it. If you've ever pushed a DAW past your CPU's processing limits, you know the sound I'm talking about. Some fiddling with bitrates, activating/deactivating, etc. solved it. Basically the digital version of giving it a whack to make it work. Ever since then, I've set my PC's output default to its highest native bitrate and sampling rate and am having no problems with Dolby Atmos for headphones.

In fact, I'm astounded at how well it works, especially with over-ears. I haven't tried it with the big cans on xbox one yet, but plugging my IEMs directly into the controller sounded pretty great for Titanfall 2. From my PC, though, watching Netflix in 5.1 is a whole new experience with spatial effects on. It gives a more immersive soundstage than my actual 5.1 setup, probably because my room is far from optimally set up and the speakers are cheap vs my headphones. With over-ears, I can hear sounds moving clearly from front to back. With in-ears, it's more like... from my position to back, or left/right of me to back. They don't give the sense of space that over-ears do, but that's kind of the nature of in-ears. In practice, visual cues are enough for your mind to fill in the blanks, so it is still an improvement on normal stereo.

This is my first experience with virtualized surround for headphones that didn't make me roll my eyes, and I gotta say I'm really enjoying it.

So far, I've been deactivating the software when I'm not running surround sound, since I don't want it to do anything to stereo tracks. Any idea if it does this automatically?

 

[x7007]

I got around it by logging out of the email address that had the issue, then log in another one and used that one to get the app to download the headphone part of the app. After it started working, I switched back and now had the option to buy it on original email i was logged into.

But Right now the buy button is disable for the temp being til they fix their issue with the store not letting people buying it, but they have a lot more they should be doing besides that.

I logged on to other email, created a new hotmail.
but it still says I own this app .
The main issue is that I removed the when you first install it , it request to download some more programs, what are they ? because I don't know. maybe it only request one time per computer ? if you uninstall and reinstall it , does it ask to install the new add-on again ?

Although there is buy option now, but I don't know what add-on it install. and if I'm missing them or something.

 

[genclaymore]

I did it in the MS store app at the top right, next to search bar you should see your account icon, clicking that will let you log out of the MS app, so you can log into another account. Any other email address will work. You just doing this so it can Download the needed files for the Atmos heaphone part of the program. Which will then allow you to buy it on your primary email after switching back. Some reason it glitches, they need to fix that.