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Up and Coming
April 7, 2013

Most Immersive Audio Headphones

Has anyone here found a pair of headphones that they feel are particularly good at both shutting out the outside world and provide great positional sound?

I have not done any research towards this and I'm hoping one of you has, and is willing to share their findings with the community.

Are you that person?

    21 replies

    Up and Coming
    April 7, 2013
    I think a good quality stereo earbud style headphone would be the best especially if you are using head related transfer sound as the sound is closest to your ear.
    Have you seen heard the virtual barber shop?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

    I'm really not much of a tech person so I'm sure others here would know better.
    New Participant
    April 7, 2013
    I use noise cancelling headphones myself and they do wonders. As for directional, that should all be taken care of in software. The hardware needs to deliver high quality sound with a separate sound channel for each ear.
    Up and Coming
    April 8, 2013
    Can either of you offer any recommendations as far as brand/model?

    Thanks!
    Craig
    Up and Coming
    April 8, 2013
    I use these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BY ... UTF8&psc=1

    They have a steel plate that muffles RL very well. They do get warm for me though.
    Asteria - http://playasteria.com
    Up and Coming
    April 8, 2013
    Thanks, @LoneCoder. Appreciate it.
    Participant
    April 9, 2013
    Those look very nice, and given the abuse some of this stuff will have to take occasionally they seem a good choice.

    I mean...think about it...VR stuff when you're connected via cables is a recipe for pulling things off tables, smacking them into reality, etc. I swear I need to pad all my walls and desks.....
    Up and Coming
    April 9, 2013
    I'm considering cramming the computing, haptics, and inputs into a VR suit. Having all the technology on you reduces or eliminates the chances you'll knock around some cable vital to the experience.

    I may need to consider lots of bluetooth gear, but I'm certain I'd run into bottlenecks.
    Up and Coming
    April 9, 2013
    I picked up the Astro A50 Wireless headsets after a fair amount of research and I have to say that they totally deliver and I am a picky. The first time I used them late at night the bass was so heavy and deep I jumped up and ran over to my 500 watt sub to turn it down to only discovery it was not even on. Very impressive! Great surround sound field too. They are going to really add to the immersion on the Oculus Rift!

    http://www.astrogaming.com/a50/

    Looking forward to seeing what others are recommending.

    VRMatthew
    VRMatthew (AKA MARKUS|edge) https://MetaverseXXX.com | Sex Positive Virtual Reality Porn
    Up and Coming
    April 12, 2013
    This is great. Keep 'em coming, gang!
    Up and Coming
    April 12, 2013
    "VRMatthew" wrote:
    I picked up the Astro A50 Wireless headsets after a fair amount of research and I have to say that they totally deliver and I am a picky.


    With headsets like these that advertise 7.1, it makes me wonder if they will faithfully reproduce plain stereo channels. I couldn't find any clues in their specs. It sounds like they're fantastic in normal use though! A simple empirical test would be listening to virtual barbershop with quality earbuds and with these... trying to note whether your sense of spatial positioning is as good in both cases.

    A better test is having a virtual world with visible sound-sources to test against (using binaural spatialized sound of course!)*. You could even make a little accuracy test with a calibrated wand (Wii/PSMove)... closing eyes like you're a Jedi. ;)

    BTW, you're now the third Calgarian I've seen on these boards!

    (* OpenAL-Soft supports HRTFs: http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html And a simple example I made because they don't package one: http://cranialburnout.blogspot.ca/2012/ ... aural.html)