7.1 surround sound with USB sound card

[narutsasuk]

So I just wanted to hear your opinion on this topic (using a USB sound card to simulate 7.1 sound on stereo headsets).
Has anyone tried it?Is it any good?

 

[ShadowPrimeOne]

Software surround sound is usually bad in general, only one that is decent is the one in the Sony's Platinum Wireless Headset for the playstation, but that one needs the game itself to send separate sound data for each object, and not many games support it.

 

[narutsasuk]

But isn't software surround sound what most 7.1 "gaming" headsets use?
What I can't understand is how 7.1 gaming headsets differ from a stereo headset with an external or internal 7.1 sound card.

 

[ShadowPrimeOne]

Maybe I'm wrong, but all the 7.1 gaming I've seen have a external sound card, all that sound card does it reroutes the sound signal to it's own DAC with it's own processing, this can theoretically be done also by the CPU and the Internal DAC of the motherboard.

 

[madmatt30]

Pointless buying a soundcard for simulated surround on stereo headsets.

Youll get a better effect using the sonic simulated surround built into windows 10 or paying for the dolby atmos audio processing software from the windows store (I believe you get a 14 day free trial).

Some games these options work well , others they don't or actually degrade audio to a point they're better disabled.

The only good surround headphones I've ever used personally are Sony MDR-DS6500 standalone wireless phones with transmitter connected via optical.

They do a good job but are not a gaming headset & they are damn expensive.

 

[narutsasuk]

Yeah I think all of them either have a separate external sound card or it's inside the headphones. So why is there so much hype for 7.1 headsets?

 

[gamerk316]

Maybe I'm wrong, but all the 7.1 gaming I've seen have a external sound card, all that sound card does it reroutes the sound signal to it's own DAC with it's own processing, this can theoretically be done also by the CPU and the Internal DAC of the motherboard.

Pretty much this. Most of the time this is performed via Dolby Headphone/Dolby Virtual Speaker, which most motherboards don't enable (the Realtek chipset supports it but it's usually disabled for licensing reasons). When you get a USB headset, you're just pushing the processing to the headset instead of a soundcard. An 99/100 times, a dedicated soundcard will have better quality then whatever DAC is stuffed in a USB headset, though there are some exceptions.

The main limitations are the end audio output does lose some quality, and you need the audio output to actually support 7.1 or the virtualization won't work properly.