Dolby sound card for Siberia 800s?

[Fireman Dave]

Hi all

Looking at grabbing a set of SteelSeries Siberia 800 headphones, as I'm keen to go wireless (I have my reasons...), and they're on a good special locally.
I have been reading that the transmitter is best connected via optical. My question is that as the headset utilises technology from Dolby, do I need a source that is feeding it the same? My motherboard (ASRock Z97 Extreme6) has 7.1 with optical, however only lists DTS.
Or, is it all as I suspect simply marketing mumbo jumbo and the "Dolby" features of my headset will work as described with my "DTS" motherboard?

Cheers!

 

[Andy_K]

I think you are limited to 5.1 via optical - as the bandwidth isn't large enough for full 7.1

 

[gamerk316]

Your headset uses virtualized 7.1. What that basically means is it takes a 7.1 audio stream and downmixes it onto a stereo soundscape, using software magic (Dolby Headphone) to give the appearance of 7.1.

If you use optical, you'll be limited to stereo as the headset lacks a DTS decoder. USB is probably the best option as you can get native 7.1 PCM and let the headsets Dolby Headphone work it's magic.