Dolby Headphone

silverpig

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Dec 31, 2007
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If any of you out there have a DVD drive and a set of decent headphones and want 5.1, then make sure you try out Dolby Headphone. Even if you are listening to a regular stereo mp3, the sound seems to come from two speakers in front of you, not from right beside your ears. It's only available in a few programs right now (powerDVD is one), but it's amazing. I just bought a set of Sennheiser wireless headphones, and tried out Dolby headphone with a DVD. It was amazing.

I also have a pretty neat setup in that I have the signal split just after it comes from my computer. One goes to the headphones for clear sound, and the other goes to my stereo amp and old tower speakers (powerful, but not super clear) which have the bass turned up. Now when I play a game, I get pretty good surround sound out of the headphones, but when a rocket explodes beside me, the tower speakers kick in and shake the room a little :^)

Check it out. www.dolby.com

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Man, these headphones sounds awsome!!

Its perfect for my apartment since my neighbors don't like loud movies while I do :smile:
Where can I get a pair, and most importantly, how much???

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silverpig

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Dec 31, 2007
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Any kind of headphones will do, although get some Sennheisers if you can. I think their cheapest wireless phones are about $160 cdn, but I'm sure you could probably get a nice set of Sennheisers for $50 american.

The whole 5.1 effect isn't due to the headphones, it's due to the dolby headphone algorithm. It's just another way of splitting up the AC3 sound stream. Sorta like 2 channel stereo, 5.1 dolby digital, DTS, and now dolby headphone.

So a decent pair of phones will run you about $50 (a cheap pair shouldn't be more than $20), and the dolby headphone is built in to programs like powerdvd. I just hope that game manufacturers/soundcard makers incorporate it into their standard products.

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yeah I hope so too, thanks...

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Oh, BTW, where can I buy a pair of the cheap $50 Sennheisers??
Thanks.

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silverpig

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Not sure. I'm from Canada, so I wouldn't really know of many american sites/stores that would have them. Try bestbuy, pricewatch etc...

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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Or get a Vortex2 card and ANY headphones. Aureal had this type of technology years ago! It takes the front and rear sounds and modifies the pitch, tone, and reverb to aproxiamte the way sounds interact with the ear from different angle. Quite impressive, works very well, just one more reason Creative sucks!

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I would have, especially with a low price...
but I have an Athlon/VIA combo...which I heard will not work well with the Vortex2 and MX300....

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silverpig

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I could... but I like the emu10k1 chip because of it's linux support (you get sound right away with linux mandrake), and because it's so well supported. I, too, have an athlon/via combo, and my sb live works well with my setup.

Besides, it seems as though dolby knows what they're talking about with 3D sound, and they know better than anyone how to decode an AC3 stream.

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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Dolby knows how to set the standard, but do you really trust a company like Creative to properly implement it? AC3, A3D, notice the name similarities? Aureal actually designed the technology needed to synthesize four way sound from two speakers. If anyone knew how to do it Aureal did.

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silverpig

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Dolby created the AC3 encoding algorithms. Dolby set the 5.1 speaker standard. Dolby is the world leader in what they do.

No doubt Aureal did some awesome work with that 4 channel, two driver effect, but Dolby is doing it with 6 channels, and the algorithm is able to work with 5 (as in 4.1), 4, or 2 channels as well.

Creative doesn't implement anything. They license the AC3 decoding tech from dolby and just provide a chip capable of executing dolby's instructions. And for that matter, you could run dolby headphone on an Aureal card without any problems at all.

AC3, A3D, AED. They all look similar but what does 3D sound have to do with portable defibrillators? :^)

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Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I was just stating that Aureal was the company that developed the technology to make 2 speakers sound like four, and it was developed for headphones! I remember a TV show I saw about the developement of this technology many years ago. Now Dolby has been encoding various forms of surround for years, but Aureal actually created a technology that used it in two speakers (including headphones). Originally Dolby gave us four peaker output form a stereo signal into four speakers using a decoder. Aureal figured out how to recombine those four singnals into two modified signals that tricked the ear into thinking it heard things from various directions. If the new Dolby headphones use a different type of technology, I am interested in having the workings of this technology explained to me!

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silverpig

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Dec 31, 2007
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True, true. Aureal did well in that department, but I'm just pointing out that now you can have that effect with ANY soundcard, and ANY headphones.

Dolby headphone isn't hardware. You can't go out and buy a set of dolby headphones. It's like stereo or 5.1 surround. You can't go out and buy stereo, or 5.1 surround, but you can buy a set of stereo speakers, or a 5.1 system. You can read all about it at www.dolby.com. There's a huge link to it right on the home page.

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