Never use Dolby Atmos.
7.1 only
Well yeah thats what everyone is talking about except a couple of us.
Dolby atmos for headphones is simple software simulation of surround sound.
99% of “7.1” headsets are simply software simulated surround sound.
There are only a small list of true 7.1 headsets unless u go to chinese off brands maybe.
Most of these guys have never used true 7.1 headsets, but I could probably get them to agree a true surround sound system in your living room is better then just a sound bar with virtual surround. They would only agree because they have actually tried real surround sound in the living room, not headsets.
I used a bunch of different headsets for OW, and found the atmos option is better then many other virtual surround headsets, but its not as good as my Asus Strix 7.1 that has multiple drivers in each ear.
The previous poster is wrong about needing a bunch of space between your head and the speaker, this is exactly how virtual surround works by adding delays to certain portions of the audio stream to simulate that distance.
But a true 7.1 headset gets around that by just not playing the sounds through every speaker, only the ones the sound comes from.
For op’s use case he isnt buying a new headset, just wants to know atmos vs built in software, and I expect the atmos will work better as its custom for the game so probably tweaked?
Tried the cloud 2’s and took them straight back.
Waste of money and felt like cheap construction.
Bought the cloud revolver s for my son and he likes them, but the virtual surround sound is odd. At first it feels like you in a big room and the sounds are coming from outside the headset, makes u want to take them off so you can hear it better, lol. Its an odd sensation.
The effect works but he usually just plugs them straight into the ps4 controller and uses stereo.
The issue that is with many “true” surround sound headsets is the lack of interaural crosstalk on headphones in general.
That is to say, spatial hearing is a lot like binocular vision. With binocular vision, each eye has a different perspective, and the differences give you enough information to compute depth. Similarly, with hearing, each ear hears something a little different, and those differences result in the perception of different directions. I can easily manipulate what each ear hears with digital postprocessing and thus manipulate the direction of sounds to match their position in the game world, but how do you do it with a true surround sound headset, where each set of drivers is still isolated to one side of the head (and thus you are only getting one ear’s perspective for a given driver)?
What you are truly asking is can a one eared man hear spatial sound, similar to a one eyed man perceiving depth(Which they can due to memory mapping and comparisons of known objects which is how flies judge depth).
Yes I am pretty sure true 7.1 headsets only play sound from the speaker that represents the direction the sound comes from, not all the others at various volumes and time lags which u would get with a home theater.
But a lot of virtual headsets I have tried do that job poorly and just makes the sound muffled and less accurate imo.
I can just say from my experience with the Asus Strix 7.1 headset that you can almost “feel” the direction the sound comes from directly, your brain doesnt have to figure out the various sounds ques.
If I tapped on the front of your ear you could tell me which ear I tapped and if it was in the front or back of your ear.
You can really tell the difference because if you bring the headset forward on your head the surround effect is off and things sound like they in the wrong position, readjust to proper position and things sound correct.
I like to test surround sound by finding an item in a game that makes noise, like in Fortnite stand near a chest and close your eyes, used to use COD and stand near a burning barrel, then start turning slowly and try to keep track of the sound then open your eyes when you think its right in front of you, (or any other direction you want)
This showed me how horrible the sound in Fortnite is, games audio been busted since launch, but its a smidge better now vs then.
You will not confuse something that is in front to the right vs something behind to the right with true surround, with virtual you need your eyes to confirm its not in front of you so that instantly tells your brain its behind you and you think you “hear” it behind you, when its just your brain figuring it out.
In the end you can use basic 2 channel headphones and get spatial sound by just turning every so often to keep track of louder vs quieter per ear, but for instant info without a bunch of software and hardware processing I think true has def advantages for gameplay, virtual would maybe be best for surround movies or something?
I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about headsets. But if you already have a really great headset you don’t need dolby. It makes things sound a little weird imo.
I don’t know what kind of Razor headset I have, but it sounds great. If I plug it into my 5.1 gamecon dolby atmod adapter, I think it doesn’t sound as great. Mind you my tech is about 2 or 3yrs old. But I know some ppl like the dolby. Sounds great on my phone though!
I personally say, try out which you like better. If you think headset is perfectly great without Dolby activated, then don’t use it. If you think it’s better with Dolby activated, then use it. I believe dolby adds in a bit of base, I personally don’t like.
One eyed people infamously don’t have good depth perception; it was a recurring gag on Futurama that Leela the cyclops had poor depth perception. Birds like pigeons, which have one eye per side of the head, are known to have substantially worse depth perception than owls, which have two on the same side. Even outside of biology, 3d cameras have two lenses, vr headsets have 2 displays, and dummy head recorders like the neumann ku100 have two microphones. Using two things and parallax solves a lot of engineering problems.
With good surround sound virtualization, you do have the information to tell front from back even without turning, it can be determined from the parallax in the audio. The only issue is that the first few times are going to be rough, since that generic parallax doesn’t exactly match your body’s real life parallax, so there is going to be an adjustment period before things start to click.
I suppose the way true surround sound headsets work is analogous to depth perception in single eyed people, in that it must heavily rely on a memory of how assets sound. The biggest issue I see with that is that every time you play a new game with new assets or if a new character is added to an existing game, the new sounds are going to have poor directionality. Like, how would you know if something sounds a certain way because it is from a certain speaker, or if it just happens to sound like that.
So what u seem to believe is that if u only had 1 ear and closed your eyes, and someone started to snap their fingers as they walked past you, that u would have no idea if they were in front, beside or behind you?
I would suggest sound is more vibration-ally detected by our bodies and not just our ears that we assume.
Its like I can “feel” the sound from the ear cup and can tell if its in front or behind my ear canal.
Maybe I have my headset too loud? LOL.
But look up Monocular Depth Perception, there is a lot of good info about it out there, basically 2 eyes is just 1 method to perceive depth.
Its the easiest method probably.
And it works really great for true surround sound headsets even “IF” the sound only comes from one cup at a time depending where the sound is located.
One thing is for sure, true surround headsets are not a “trick” like virtual surround and it doesnt distort the audio.
Yeah I agree Atmos is the way to go. As I and most others have said. You can’t go back to stereo. I can hear so much more I now know when and what is coming my way and how much time I have to react.
I really dont believe I have put 50 hours into OW with it off. I instantly got better at reacting to incoming threats.
but 7.1s also have 1 driver for each earcup…
they are virtual speakers