QQ101: Multichannel Headphone Listening?

[James_in_VA]

If this is in the wrong forum, I apologize. I looked at them all and couldn't figure which was the best fit.

I don't yet have an in-room setup since many of my belongings are in boxes after being in storage for years. In the meantime I was hoping to do some headphone multichannel listening. I know that gamers do so with their PCs and "7.1" headphones and I gather this is done by using software to trick the brain since the headphones have two speakers.

I have an Oppo BDP103, a Monoprice Liquid Spark headphone amp, and a few sets of low-to-midrange headphones. What else do I need? Do i need an external DAC or can I use the one in the Oppo?

Thanks in advance!

 

[LB-V]

Hello James....I'm very far from a well informed headphone QQer, but I'll give you my feedback...

I'm aware that there exists quad headphones....from the vintage era of the quad era. But I do not think that is what you are after. I'm not familiar with modern 7.1 type headphones. Not to say they are not out there. I'm just not aware of what those might be.

However, I am somewhat knowledgeable with regard to Apple Music and their Atmos / Spatial Audio. I believe Spatial Audio is what Apple calls an Atmos stream played over earbuds. It provides a surround effect in your head, as you said, using psychoacoustics....as I understand it. You only need the Spatial Audio capable earbuds (I think most decent modern ear buds / pods are) and a device (phone) that plays an Atmos stream. I think most newer phones do, you just need to make sure the phone playback settings are correct.

So, to get Spatial Audio, or surround over earphones (earbuds), you can use a mobile device and Apple Music. You can trial Apple Music for free for some length of time if you do not have it.

This is just the one way I am aware of to get "surround" via headphones. There are probably several other means that I am not aware of.

Now, there may be some who will say there's no such thing as real surround over headphones. Phoooey on that idea. If headphones are the only thing we have at our disposal, then we maximize what we have and enjoy the surround we can get. It's definitely an entirely different category of surround, but surround nevertheless, compared to stereo earbud listening.

Enjoy!

Hope this helped a bit.

 

[James_in_VA]

Hello James....I'm very far from a well informed headphone QQer, but I'll give you my feedback...

I'm aware that there exists quad headphones....from the vintage era of the quad era. But I do not think that is what you are after. I'm not familiar with modern 7.1 type headphones. Not to say they are not out there. I'm just not aware of what those might be.

However, I am somewhat knowledgeable with regard to Apple Music and their Atmos / Spatial Audio. I believe Spatial Audio is what Apple calls an Atmos stream played over earbuds. It provides a surround effect in your head, as you said, using psychoacoustics....as I understand it. You only need the Spatial Audio capable earbuds (I think most decent modern ear buds / pods are) and a device (phone) that plays an Atmos stream. I think most newer phones do, you just need to make sure the phone playback settings are correct.

So, to get Spatial Audio, or surround over earphones (earbuds), you can use a mobile device and Apple Music. You can trial Apple Music for free for some length of time if you do not have it.

This is just the one way I am aware of to get "surround" via headphones. There are probably several other means that I am not aware of.

Now, there may be some who will say there's no such thing as real surround over headphones. Phoooey on that idea. If headphones are the only thing we have at our disposal, then we maximize what we have and enjoy the surround we can get. It's definitely an entirely different category of surround, but surround nevertheless, compared to stereo earbud listening.

Enjoy!

Hope this helped a bit.

LB-V,
Thanks so much for taking the time

Hello James....I'm very far from a well informed headphone QQer, but I'll give you my feedback...

I'm aware that there exists quad headphones....from the vintage era of the quad era. But I do not think that is what you are after. I'm not familiar with modern 7.1 type headphones. Not to say they are not out there. I'm just not aware of what those might be.

However, I am somewhat knowledgeable with regard to Apple Music and their Atmos / Spatial Audio. I believe Spatial Audio is what Apple calls an Atmos stream played over earbuds. It provides a surround effect in your head, as you said, using psychoacoustics....as I understand it. You only need the Spatial Audio capable earbuds (I think most decent modern ear buds / pods are) and a device (phone) that plays an Atmos stream. I think most newer phones do, you just need to make sure the phone playback settings are correct.

So, to get Spatial Audio, or surround over earphones (earbuds), you can use a mobile device and Apple Music. You can trial Apple Music for free for some length of time if you do not have it.

This is just the one way I am aware of to get "surround" via headphones. There are probably several other means that I am not aware of.

Now, there may be some who will say there's no such thing as real surround over headphones. Phoooey on that idea. If headphones are the only thing we have at our disposal, then we maximize what we have and enjoy the surround we can get. It's definitely an entirely different category of surround, but surround nevertheless, compared to stereo earbud listening.

Enjoy!

Hope this helped a bit.

LB-V,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a clear and detailed answer. I truly appreciate it! As my source, I'm playing physical media through my Oppo BDP-103 which I believe is fairly common in the QQ community. So I'm wondering how that would work for quad or 5.1 listening? I'm thinking that some processing would need to take place to trick the brain. I have to believe that at least a few people here have attempted spatial audio using headphones. Again, many thanks again!

 

[DuncanS]

There is the Smyth A16 Realiser but not cheap (I paid £4k!) coupled with a good set of (stereo) headphones it works very well, and it decodes Atmos and positions nicely through the headphones (I don't have an Atmos capable amp).

 

[GOS]

To be honest, I don't recall anyone on the forum discussing ways to do this. We'll see what becomes of this thread in the next week or so. May get some hits...

 

[Sonik Wiz]

LB-V,
Thanks so much for taking the time

LB-V,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a clear and detailed answer. I truly appreciate it! As my source, I'm playing physical media through my Oppo BDP-103 which I believe is fairly common in the QQ community. So I'm wondering how that would work for quad or 5.1 listening? I'm thinking that some processing would need to take place to trick the brain. I have to believe that at least a few people here have attempted spatial audio using headphones. Again, many thanks again!

Because of this thread I did some poking around and, as mentioned above, several headphones designed for gaming with virtual surround. These have mics attached & I have no idea what the audio quality would be. All that I have seen are designed to work with PC's and a specific headphone app such DTS Headphone X or ATMOS.

At any rate bear in mind that with your Oppo whether you are playing a stereo disc or 5.1 MCH it will still be output thru the headphone jack as 2.0 stereo.

So now what your really looking for is a black box to plug into the Oppo that will both upmix 2.0 to surround and make a virtual presentation of that in regular headphones.

I haven't found that yet. But I am interested as some day my age related hearing deficit might get so bad that headphones would be a viable way to get compensating EQ, balance, and high enough SPL output. My neighbors who are older than me & HOH blast their TV so loud I can hear it as soon as I walk out my garage. I don't want that to be me.

 

[AlexS]

I, too, wanted to find a surround headphone solution but wasn’t successful in the past. Prompted by James today I found the $1,000 JVC XP-EXT1 HEADPHONES. It’s a pair of headphones and a dedicated box reviewed by David Susilo here. Now I’m intrigued and will consider trying them myself. (I wonder whether a trial period is allowed.)

 

[edisonbaggins]

I don't have much to add to this convo, other than I recall years back that Soundgarden Superunknown was released with an immersive app version.
I never successfully acquired it, so no idea if it used a technology mentioned yet, something else, needed special headphones (l think not - only the app on a compatible phone).
Surround through headphones is the dream. There was a large discussion about it, maybe in 2018? Around then, cause I was deployed.
Anyway, following!

 

[esimms86]

I second Duncan’s comments about the Smyth Realiser A16. It does everything from 3 channel to 13.1.10(!) Dolby Atmos, plus Auro 3D and Auromatic upmixing to boot. I believe that current prices are now actually in the £5k range. I got mine for 800 USD through their Kickstarter campaign but I paid for it with a 4 1/2 year wait for delivery.

There’s also the Audeze Möbius, another even less expensive Kickstarter purchase. It doesn’t set the world on fire surround wise but it is a rather nice try. I gifted mine to my son who enjoys using it for gaming with his Xbox.

 

[James_in_VA]

I'm so grateful for all the information provided thus far! I've made a little bit of progress albeit not using my Oppo player. I have an Xbox Series X for casual gaming with my daughter and for playing 4K UHD movies. I did some research and ordered a slightly-used pair of these highly rated headphones for $138:
Manufacturer Link

These headphones are rated for high-res Atmos and come packaged with a DAC breakout box. Both the headphones and box are compatible with Windows PCs but I've only experimented with the Xbox. There is a USB-C between the Xbox and the DAC and a 1/8" stereo cable between the DAC and the headphones.

After loading a Dolby Atmos app on the Xbox, I went to YouTube to play some 5.1 and Atmos test videos. It worked! On the Atmos helicopter demo I could hear the flyover above me. I then played some demo music videos e.g. from Coldplay. I could effectively hear the individual instruments coming from three dimensions. I next tried playing a DTS DVD of Genesis music videos and the 5.1 was quite effective. Later in the week I'll try the DAC and headphones with my laptop both with physical media and with Amazon Music.

 

[AlexS]

I'm so grateful for all the information provided thus far! I've made a little bit of progress albeit not using my Oppo player. I have an Xbox Series X for casual gaming with my daughter and for playing 4K UHD movies. I did some research and ordered a slightly-used pair of these highly rated headphones for $138:
Amazon: SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro
These headphones are rated for high-res Atmos and come packaged with a DAC breakout box. Both the headphones and box are compatible with Windows PCs but I've only experimented with the Xbox. There is a USB-C between the Xbox and the DAC and a 1/8" stereo cable between the DAC and the headphones.

After loading a Dolby Atmos app on the Xbox, I went to YouTube to play some 5.1 and Atmos test videos. It worked! On the Atmos helicopter demo I could hear the flyover above me. I then played some demo music videos e.g. from Coldplay. I could effectively hear the individual instruments coming from three dimensions. I next tried playing a DTS DVD of Genesis music videos and the 5.1 was quite effective. Later in the week I'll try the DAC and headphones with my laptop both with physical media and with Amazon Music.

Thanks for the update, James. Great success! When you test with physical media, it would be interesting if you played a quad matrix recording through the box & headphones to see whether it recovers rear channel audio.

 

[edisonbaggins]

I'm so grateful for all the information provided thus far! I've made a little bit of progress albeit not using my Oppo player. I have an Xbox Series X for casual gaming with my daughter and for playing 4K UHD movies. I did some research and ordered a slightly-used pair of these highly rated headphones for $138:
Manufacturer Link

These headphones are rated for high-res Atmos and come packaged with a DAC breakout box. Both the headphones and box are compatible with Windows PCs but I've only experimented with the Xbox. There is a USB-C between the Xbox and the DAC and a 1/8" stereo cable between the DAC and the headphones.

After loading a Dolby Atmos app on the Xbox, I went to YouTube to play some 5.1 and Atmos test videos. It worked! On the Atmos helicopter demo I could hear the flyover above me. I then played some demo music videos e.g. from Coldplay. I could effectively hear the individual instruments coming from three dimensions. I next tried playing a DTS DVD of Genesis music videos and the 5.1 was quite effective. Later in the week I'll try the DAC and headphones with my laptop both with physical media and with Amazon Music.

Wow! That sounds very encouraging!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

,
1

I'm so grateful for all the information provided thus far! I've made a little bit of progress albeit not using my Oppo player. I have an Xbox Series X for casual gaming with my daughter and for playing 4K UHD movies. I did some research and ordered a slightly-used pair of these highly rated headphones for $138:
Manufacturer Link

These headphones are rated for high-res Atmos and come packaged with a DAC breakout box. Both the headphones and box are compatible with Windows PCs but I've only experimented with the Xbox. There is a USB-C between the Xbox and the DAC and a 1/8" stereo cable between the DAC and the headphones.

After loading a Dolby Atmos app on the Xbox, I went to YouTube to play some 5.1 and Atmos test videos. It worked! On the Atmos helicopter demo I could hear the flyover above me. I then played some demo music videos e.g. from Coldplay. I could effectively hear the individual instruments coming from three dimensions. I next tried playing a DTS DVD of Genesis music videos and the 5.1 was quite effective. Later in the week I'll try the DAC and headphones with my laptop both with physical media and with Amazon Music.

Cool beans! It looks like you mainly solved the problem yourself. And damn what a great price! Looking forward to follow ups on this!

 

[esimms86]

,
1

Cool beans! It looks like you mainly solved the problem yourself. And damn what a great price! Looking forward to follow ups on this!

Now we know who’s the real sonic wiz!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Now we know who’s the real sonic wiz!

Ah yes. But there is only one Sonik Wiz around here. Someday I hope to be an UltraSonik Wiz.