I own one of these and, yes, I know that their “3D” sound is only produced by Amazon’s HD Sound. Still, I was wondering if anyone within the Blizzard Game World has tried using two of these in your gaming environment and what results you may have had?
Thanks
There’s not really such a thing as ‘3d’ from a single speaker, like the 7.1 software emulation from your past threads regarding Dolby.
I don’t know what “3D” sound is exactly, but it’s probably just another gimmick. Most of these things just artificially boost treble and/or bass and basically mess up sound imaging, by positioning instruments farther to make it sound like the speaker’s sound is coming from a distance slightly longer than the size of the device. Most companies do this wrong and make it bad, but some speakers do an ok job.
I guess you could use the Echo Studio in a pair(if it even supports it being used as a pair), but it wouldn’t make much sense. I’d imagine the game positioning would be terrible, considering those Echo Studio have mid-woofers basically positioned all the place blurring positioning, relying on the single tweeter. You’d be getting mostly echos and reflections off objects than a realistic sound on a desk setup. The Echo Studio is meant to be 360 speaker meaning the speaker isn’t meant to fire in most directions, it’s not meant for a desk setup up close. There are also speaker tuning differences for speakers meant to be used at a desk up close and those meant to be heard from far away(Echo Studio).
If I had to guess it’d just very echo-y and muffled, ‘big’, reflecting off a a desk, wall, and everything else on the desk, and things like a plastic monitor causing lots of peaks, and it would be hard to locate things precisely, because well, sound would be coming from everywhere and very indirect. Speakers like that aren’t very good for a desk setup, since the speakers should be ideally would be pointing towards towards your ears. Not to mention that the sole Tweeter on that speaker is covered, meaning it’s just a wall of noise since the tweeter is covered up, dulling the already stereo positioning(but like I said, it’s meant more for far listening in any direction, not for a desk setup).
You’d be probably better off just buying a proper desk speaker instead of wasting your money, if you have the space to fit two of those on a desk.
The Echo Studio relies on lots of reflections(by pointing speaker drivers in a lot of directions, and pointing the main woofer at the table) from walls, desks, objects to create a ‘big sound’ that’s loud in a lot of directions, which is pretty terrible for gaming unless you want a mess of sound and just want boom. Some speakers specifically use the walls to boost bass through their ‘ports’ on the back, which is ok in some cases, but blasting a mid-woofer at a wall sounds like a disaster at a desk setup unless you like boomy hollow sound. The Studio shouldn’t even be a stereo speaker, because it only has a single tweeter.
If you want real ‘3d’ sound, you need a surround setup with 6 or 8 speakers, assuming the content/program is using even surround over 2.0 (stereo).
TLDR: If you want just a indirect echo’d sound coming from every direction(a big wall of sound), you could try if it’s supported, otherwise if you want a precise more accurate sound/real surround sound, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. The Echo Studio were not designed for your use case.
Thank you, Darknesself for once again lending your knowledge and expertise to my question and helping me save some bucks. I like the one I have, but I do have to admit I need to set it at least 6 " from the nearest wall, to avoid defeating its intent - regulating the sound according to the room it is in (my bedroom - my wife won’t allow it anywhere else!).
Many thanks and have a great game!
Bill (and ol’ Jonãs)