Crescent Bay headphones a joke??

I currently use AKG K240 studio phones, which are pretty decent (I use them for editing music in fact and they are one of the standards in the music world for that task), they sound great. However for gaming, seriously I don't absolutely require that level IF it means I can have something far simpler and built in.

Using the Dk2 now one of my few frustrations is continually having to put my cans on AFTER I have the rift on, and remembering to take them off first before the rift... on the one occasion I ripped the rift off my head (during dreadhalls don't ask ;0 ) my headphones went flying in a tangled mess causing all kinds of fuss... *ahem*.

Anyway, I applaud their attempt to include headphones - as that was one of the things I liked about that product that looked like a set of cans with a screen that folded down from the headband. In my case if I'm swapping it over to people to try things out it's much easier if it has built in headphones and yeah one less bloody cable to worry about (I hate cables they conspire against me in my music studio getting caught under my chair, on keyboard stands etc.... yanking my head sideways unexpectedly when I move etc).

So ok no 'sit on ears' type phones could replace larger drivers in decent, large headphones but we should at least wait to try the final ones in CV1 before declaring them a write off. In this case I think convenience will outweigh the problem of lack of bass or whatever, and it will be a lot nicer to use when putting on/off vs the 'hunt the headphones through the nose slot' I currently have to do :)

"Sharpfish" wrote:
I currently use AKG K240 studio phones, which are pretty decent (I use them for editing music in fact and they are one of the standards in the music world for that task), they sound great. However for gaming, seriously I don't absolutely require that level IF it means I can have something far simpler and built in.

Using the Dk2 now one of my few frustrations is continually having to put my cans on AFTER I have the rift on, and remembering to take them off first before the rift... on the one occasion I ripped the rift off my head (during dreadhalls don't ask ;0 ) my headphones went flying in a tangled mess causing all kinds of fuss... *ahem*.

Anyway, I applaud their attempt to include headphones - as that was one of the things I liked about that product that looked like a set of cans with a screen that folded down from the headband. In my case if I'm swapping it over to people to try things out it's much easier if it has built in headphones and yeah one less bloody cable to worry about (I hate cables they conspire against me in my music studio getting caught under my chair, on keyboard stands etc.... yanking my head sideways unexpectedly when I move etc).

So ok no 'sit on ears' type phones could replace larger drivers in decent, large headphones but we should at least wait to try the final ones in CV1 before declaring them a write off. In this case I think convenience will outweigh the problem of lack of bass or whatever, and it will be a lot nicer to use when putting on/off vs the 'hunt the headphones through the nose slot' I currently have to do :)

I still think to keep cost down then would be to not making VR headphones

it's completely unnecessary

it's kind of like where.. people only get to have fries or mash potato and no choice in the only burger place in the area

just because VR is the only headset doesn't mean they should make users use "their" headphones because everyones ears are different

so calibrating for a type of ear won't be the same as other ear sizes as well as the way people interpret frequencies in their mind

I gave the G940 headphones a chance over the Apple headphones or Vmoda and they can't replicate the sound as good because the bass gets distorted

same with the Bose overear premium $350 headset as that isn't good as QC20 inear

In flight school I have inear TSO certified headset (the one FedEx) uses but.. cause the Cessna receiver is so bad I can't really make out what they are saying over the air

it's not like watching a youtube video where it's clear.. the overear it probably better but I never tried

I think in a super noisy environment like an airplane then overear might be better? but people using inear say they can't hear the people around them even in the noisiest conditions with the QC20.. noise cancelling..

my voice/receive headset for flying is passive noise cancelling so maybe that's the difference..

I don't think there is such a thing as active noise cancelling for inear.. Bose QC20 is the first and it just came out

I suggest everyone give it a try as well as the Etymotics before using the overears as the ONLY VR permanent no choice option

btw I love this developer stuff..

usually when I say stuff people don't take what I say seriously and make a joke about

some have been doing that here but not all as there are good discussions about what I bring up : )

"AntDX316" wrote:
if you heard what I listen to at home with the settings I have and hardware to use

you would stop talking s*

Creative's snake oil gimmicks like Crystalizer and so on would instakill any HRTF accuracy. Same with CMSS-3D which basically just exagerates channel separation, pumps up the bass, and adds a cheap HRTF. (And any HRTF effect which mixes a surround mix down to stereo is pretty much insufficient by default.) These things are only designed to "sound better", but they're really just no good.

HRTFs are just a small part of the positioning problem though.

Getting the reverb mix right is much much more important, and that is something the majority of sound applications currently just don't get right at all.

Most implementations are just taking the listener output mix and pushing that into the reverb effect. At the very least you should make a separate mix for the reverb input with some estimated room positioning based on room size. (If I remember correctly, Creative even dropped room size etc from the reverb parameters when they replaced EAX with EFX in standard OpenAL.) The relative volume of the direct and reverb of a sound source is a very important cue for distancing.

Nothing else you do will have any significant effect without accurate HRTF, spatializing the direct source is the baseline that everything else builds off of.

RealSpace3D does also handle reverb by defining room volumes and basic material properties, which will handle the less complex cases. Getting more complex, to the point of handling occlusion well, means you need to simulate diffraction, which gets hugely expensive (in labor and processing) for non-trivial scenes and requires tight game engine integration, preferably with artist-defined scene occlusion geometry like a 3D analog of a nav-mesh. I don't think we will get there for a while.

Non audiophile here. Technologically illiterate when it comes down to sound.

Do want some sort of good 3D audio for the Rift. So, will a Razer Tiamat 7.1 or a Sony EX300SL be enough?

Because I suppouse any software solution OVR implements for CV1 will work flawlessly in any decent quality headphones one might have, right?
And that there won't be any physical interference either.

"kaetemi" wrote:

"AntDX316" wrote:
if you heard what I listen to at home with the settings I have and hardware to use

you would stop talking s*

Creative's snake oil gimmicks like Crystalizer and so on would instakill any HRTF accuracy. Same with CMSS-3D which basically just exagerates channel separation, pumps up the bass, and adds a cheap HRTF. (And any HRTF effect which mixes a surround mix down to stereo is pretty much insufficient by default.) These things are only designed to "sound better", but they're really just no good.

HRTFs are just a small part of the positioning problem though.

Getting the reverb mix right is much much more important, and that is something the majority of sound applications currently just don't get right at all.

Most implementations are just taking the listener output mix and pushing that into the reverb effect. At the very least you should make a separate mix for the reverb input with some estimated room positioning based on room size. (If I remember correctly, Creative even dropped room size etc from the reverb parameters when they replaced EAX with EFX in standard OpenAL.) The relative volume of the direct and reverb of a sound source is a very important cue for distancing.

it does make it sound better

its just their xfi standalone non-PC music playing module is bad

anyone who uses it would say crystallizer doesn't do much

but on PC it does

This thread is a joke!!

Almost any "gaming" headphones will simply not work with 3D audio for most people. Especially the "7.1" ones. They do all kinds of filtering that will actively interfere with the software Oculus is using, on top of being generally poor quality in absolute terms.

It would be equivalent to taking a movie shot in 3D, playing it in 2D, then running it through youtube 2D to 3D conversion. Any actual spatial information is hopelessly lost.

"owenwp" wrote:
Almost any "gaming" headphones will simply not work with 3D audio for most people. Especially the "7.1" ones. They do all kinds of filtering that will actively interfere with the software Oculus is using, on top of being generally poor quality in absolute terms.

It would be equivalent to taking a movie shot in 3D, playing it in 2D, then running it through youtube 2D to 3D conversion. Any actual spatial information is hopelessly lost.

So, if a Razer Tiamat 7.1 isn't good enough to be the complement of an Oculus Rift CV1, there will be VR-oriented headphones/earbuds in the future?
What kind of gear should non-audiophile, non-exquisite people try to get?