Do the 5.1 Stereo Headphones Really Work? 84
Tamor asks: "Zalman, the company behind some extremely high quality PC noise-reducing products are now selling real 5.1 surround sound headphones. The surround effect is achieved by placing 3 drivers in each ear-piece. As a geek-with-young-family this product's pushing all the right buttons for me, it looks cool, and means I can finally achieve surround sound without waking the kids. Or does it? I was sure that to place a sound spatially your brain relies on the delay between hearing the sound in one ear and then the other. If your left ear only hears the left 3 channels, and your right ear only hears the right 3 channels isn't this making it more difficult for spatial placement to happen? Do you know if/how these are achieving surround effect if each ear is only hearing half of the audio field?"
Ask Slashdot? What about Ask the Manufacturer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not call the manufacturer and ask them how they do it? Maybe get a set from them to demo and test. See if YOU can hear the difference.
You know what? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isnt something that somebody decided one weekend would be neat, and so slapped three headphones together with duct-tape and started talking to magazines. They developed, designed, tested, talked to various manufacturers, looked into methods of distribution. Do you think that in all that time, nobody would have considered how surround sound would be best implimented in a pair of headphones?
Editors need to stop accepting stories with these bullshits tacked on. If you want to make a completely uninformed comment, post a comment after[if] the article is accepted.
Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Sennheiser .. but still no subwoofer (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe they cost about $600 or even more, and they had really great sound. I don't have much experience in headphones, so I'm not sure if this basically would apply to any $200+ set... ?
Anyway, they lacked one big thing: The subwoofer. Half the surround experience is the feeling of the ultra low frequency in your stomach, and earphones just wont do that.
Something I would like to point out (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Physics Problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You know what? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, marketting or otherwise, his question is worthwhile. His question can be answered by a myriad of reviews available on the subject, but that's not what you seem to be talking about.
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Spatialization can work with headphones (Score:3, Insightful)
If you close your eyes and have someone snap their fingers directly behind or directly above your head, you probably will not be able to determine quite where it's coming from.
Note: this info is based on one intro course I took my freshman year five years ago, and I'm not a doctor/medical student or anything, so I may be off...