I was wondering if you guys could help me out. my current headset is apparently rather cheaply made, and as such I'm in need of a new one that's not quite so crap. I've looked around online and can only seem to find a few gaming headsets that have surround sound and so I'm now wondering if anyone can give me a comparison on quality of directional sound with using Creative's CMSS 3D for stereo headphones.

I've got a creative X-Fi sound card in my system and I understand that the CMSS technology is supposed to provide surround sound effects in games without actually having surround sound speakers. how well does this tech work? how accurately can you tell where the sound is coming from? how is the overall sound quality with the system active? most importantly, though, is it better than having an actual set of surround sound headphones?

Get one of those Steelseries siberia headsets, and preferrably with a usb key sound card thing.

EDIT:

I Didn't really know what i just did, but it certainly had a certain degree of offtopicness.

Get one of those Steelseries siberia headsets, and preferrably with a usb key sound card thing.uh....k.....but that doesn't answer my question :p

Wait: Surround Sound is where 3 or more speakers are used. I've never seen headphones with more than 2 speakers. So I don't know what you're talking about.

Wait: Surround Sound is where 3 or more speakers are used. I've never seen headphones with more than 2 speakers. So I don't know what you're talking about.5.1 headsets feature at least 3 speakers per ear. they're all miniature speakers placed within what appears to be a single speaker. they're placed to provide multi-directional sound within the headset.

here's a link to the one I have that's apparently cheaply made:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2769343&CatId=2382

I use phillips SBC HP250 and the xfi CMSS 3D feature is pretty great.

is the surround effect pretty accurate?

Creative's CMSS 3D feature makes the sound nicer, sure, but IMO the surround effect isn't something to shout about. I own an X-Fi Platinum, a set of Sennheiser HD201s (music) and some Sennheiser PC161s (gaming). My speaker system is an old Creative/Cambridge Soundworks DTT3500 Digital - an acceptable 5.1 system by today's standards; designed to be used with the Live! 5.1 Player series in its day.

In audio, it's one of those generally-accepted rules that you should keep the audio source as free from interference as you can. Interference can come from attenuation introduced by using multiple connections in and out, low-quality cable, and putting the signal through multiple machines, which can remove the clarity of the sound each time you run it through something and leave it a little bit more flat-sounding than before. I've found that the audio output from my X-Fi lacks some dynamic range. I've used the 24-bit crystalizer, which again, makes it sound nicer, but it doesn't fix the original problem.

The best thing you can do is buy yourself the most expensive, high quality headphones that your budget will allow. There is only so much that software can do to manipulate sound in to a quasi-surround effect. Either accept very good two-channel sound, or, if Sennheiser make any surround gaming headsets, go for those after reading some reviews. As a second choice, Logitech or Plantronics. Siberia I have no experience with.

All of the above is IME/IMO.

I was actually looking at sennheiser as it seemed to be a high-quality brand for headsets, but they do not make a 5.1 surround sound headset. a video review of their product ( this one, specifically (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3756954&CatId=2382) ) is actually what made me ask this question. the product looks good and it's advertised as one of the better solutions to gaming headsets, but the lack of surround sound had me confused.

my main issue is that the surround sound headsets are few and typically made by companies with reputations for crap products. all the good companies seem to only make stereo headsets. this makes me wonder if the 3D effect gained from software is actually comparable in a gaming environment. so long as I can hear the direction of where my opponents are coming from I'm pretty much good with a stereo set, and from the reviews of things like the Fatal1ty gaming headset, I understand that I can, in fact, hear those sorts of details, but I want to be sure from someone with experience in that area first.

you seem to have audio experience, and you say that the sound quality is fairly high, but would you call the multi-directional sound accurate?

Hello, Nathan.

Multi-directional sound in two-channel headsets is not truly accurate, no. In reality what you will hear are the small differences in level that will make your brain presume the sound came from behind you. I imagine Creative's CMSS 3D works along those lines, by reading each channel, changing the sound a little and mixing it in to a two-channel stream, letting your brain do the work, but I've never been satisfied with this method. I take the reduction in level, and sometimes the slight muffling of the sound due to any environmental effects and couple it with the fact that I cannot see the source of the sound on the screen, and work out that it must be behind me. If the sound is biased toward the left or right channel, then it's behind me in that direction. If the sound comes from both channels, then it's probably directly behind me.

The only ways you can improve upon this is by getting a surround speaker system or headset, OR ensure that your audio source has been recorded using a special binaural (I think that's the term) microphone system. They are two sensitive mics placed on a model of a human head where the ears are, and they provide a truly engrossing experience. They also work due to differences in level and the manipulation of sound based on its position in the atmosphere. This is why you can't really hear it working on a speaker system. Unfortunately, binaural systems work in stereo, and to reproduce the effect in game would mean creating a different sound for each position of the in-game source. The in-game sound system, and your sound card, will attempt to recreate this effect but its success is limited as the ability of the human ears and brain is so great.

I know what you mean regarding the surround phones seemingly being made only by **** companies. That's partially why I've steered clear of them, and also the fact there aren't many around by decent companies leads me to believe they aren't the best solution. I've not used one though.

Hear a good example of a binaural recording here (http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=virtual+haircut&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8). Wear your headphones.

In short, if you get a decent set of headphones, then your experience will depend on two things. 1. The ability of the game's sound system to recreate the binaural effect if you tell it you are using two channel sound or headphones, 2. the ability of your sound card to take the multiple channels and convert them in to two channels whilst changing the sound to recreate the binaural effect.

Incidentally, I've used Bioshock with the game settings set to multi-channel surround, and have set my X-Fi to CMSS-3D surround and told it I'm using headphones. I find the transition of a sound source from the left to right ear in front and behind as I rotate on the spot is poor. I notice the sound seems to go missing when it's between the two channels, and that I can't notice any change in the sound as it moves from the front to the back. It might be Bioshock or I might have a software problem with my card, I don't know. The sound source should be present all the time, only changing slightly as it moves around my head.

I've also noticed with my surround sound set that if the sound is coming from between 2 channels it blanks out. I was actually hoping that issue would be resolved with a stereo set but it appears not.

I've heard the binaural sound experiments before, but I find that games, for some reason, do not use the technique, so that doesn't much help for me.

perhaps I should just go ahead and purchase the stereo set, since your main complaint with the stereo set is the same as mine with the 5.1.

anyone else know anything on this subject?

I've heard the binaural sound experiments before, but I find that games, for some reason, do not use the technique, so that doesn't much help for me.
Huh?
Works perfectly fine for me.

5.1 works even better. In fact, when I'm playing CS:S with friends who only have stereo, I always tell them where the enemies are coming from over Teamspeak as it seems they just can't locate them properly with only 2 channels.

Uh, I believe creative software uses that HRTF positional audio stuff for headphones and simulate it when in 2.1 desktop speaker mode and both are probably aimed at stereo audio sources which could be why you lose sound when setting the game to 5.1 mode.

Uh, I believe creative software uses that HRTF positional audio stuff for headphones and simulate it when in 2.1 desktop speaker mode and both are probably aimed at stereo audio sources which could be why you lose sound when setting the game to 5.1 mode.I actually set the headphones to 5.1 mode rather than headphone mode normally, to avoid that exact problem.

and thanks for your testimonial, bonz. good to hear from someone with actual experience in both areas.

I've got an X-fi Xtreme Gamer and Sennheiser pc151 headset, and I always seem to know where the sound comes from so, uhm, I guess it works. Just to support that it actually works. :p