What's new
By:
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Shimano Zee and Astro A40s


Z

Zeealex

Retired Forum Moderator
Messages
2,748
Likes
915
just thought I'd post the explanation to my signature now before I get questions later.

Shimano Are a bike (and other sports) components company if you didn't know, and they've always been a favorite if my bike needs it's updates, I saw the Zee range and thought, "sorry but I have to take the mickey a bit here" I've currently got the Acera brakes on my bike after the generic crud broke halfway down a steep hill and the Acera Drivetrain set is on the list after the wheels are replaced (the hub bearings are damaged)


As For the Astro A40's.

I won them in a contest recently, they are on order atm, so it's a bit of a waiting game for now.

pdp_a40_wired_astro_white_1.jpg

But they will be worth it. Dolby 7.1 surround sound HQ mic, cross compatible. etc :P not to mention incredibly gorgeous!
 
I have a road bike so I'm familiar. I run with the whole Tiagra setup. As for headphone, never really understood surround sound headphones. You only have 2 ears, so if you enclose them with sound shouldn't you be able to get the same effects with just 2 channels?
 
Nice, I've got an old MTB, that need updating desperately the amount of disastrous trips I've had with it XD


not necessarily, stereo simply distributes the sound to the left and right of you. 7.1 surround sound will distribute the sound all around you, in headphones it will work sort of the same only the surround sound headset will either be several smaller speakers, or one large speaker that recreates the effect.

when you compare the headsets you can hear a difference it's hard to explain without actually hearing it. my 5.1 headset is old and nearly dead, but i can definitely tell a difference between that and my phone's headphones.

stereo headsets can use holophonics, however, recording holophonics is lengthy and can be expensive.
 
You've kind of nailed what I'm getting at in a way. Holophonics use only stereo however can reproduce surround sound as long as the user is wearing headphones. I don't understand why this isn't a normal thing!? In terms of extra expense with holophonics, I don't believe this would actually be the case as it's all done digitally now and can easily be reproduced (from what I understand of it). I personally haven't tried surround sound headphones but I'm thinking at this from a simply technical point of view. It's an interesting topic to discuss though.
 
RTContent said:
You've kind of nailed what I'm getting at in a way. Holophonics use only stereo however can reproduce surround sound as long as the user is wearing headphones. I don't understand why this isn't a normal thing!? In terms of extra expense with holophonics, I don't believe this would actually be the case as it's all done digitally now and can easily be reproduced (from what I understand of it). I personally haven't tried surround sound headphones but I'm thinking at this from a simply technical point of view. It's an interesting topic to discuss though.
Click to expand...

Tis an interesting topic yes :)

Holophonics don't work very well on speakers, you could be using the highest quality speakers out there, and it will sound quite terrible, and when it comes to character, vehicle and environment recording, holophonics won't come in handy as their positions can vary greatly, with environments, the character will move around a lot, and the environment will change, again, it's hard to position the holophonic sound against the movement of the player, yes it can be done, but i can imagine it's pain in the backside to do, and probably easier to just leave the audio as it is, Holophonics would work well in movies, but not games as such, game developers want the best quality of sound all around, not just for headphone users, people still use speakers these days :P

I like holophonics but right now i don't think its practical to implement all round, until there's a way of simulating it on speakers.
 
what i'm saying is, if you use holophonics in a game, assuming everyone uses headphones, then those with speakers/surround sound headsets get significantly lower quality sound.

that's 5.1 surround 7.1 is a fair bit better, but it will still hold up the CPU trying to process holophonics in real time, either way, i'm not disputing holophonics/binurals are the way forward, but right now, sending out layered sound across 7 channels is the best thing to do right now.

yes i agree that every game should have the holophonics option, for people using in ear headphones, but that means larger games, due to more sound files at higher frequencies and using two channels simultaneously, and more of a fuss organizing these into the game, its not click, click done, trust me I tried it once and it was a pain in the backside.

but right now, I'm quite happy that I won a 7.1 Dolby surround sound headset with plenty of extra benefits that you wouldn't get with a simple set of headphones if you aren't then that's fine by me.
 
I don't really think you're making much sense. Currently in games to produce 5.1/7.1 the game engine uses virtual microphones around the player to pick these up. All that would need to be done to create true 3d sound through headphones would be to place these virtual microphones where the players ears should be and simulate a head (for occlusion purposes). I'm not 100% but I'm pretty sure games like BF3 already do this. Assuming this is true, surround sound headphones wouldn't give you any extra benefit at all (see what I'm getting at?).

It's not that I'm unhappy with you getting free headphones, that's great and I'd be glad to receive them too, I just like having these discussions :D
 
Right i'll put it simply what I think, #1, I hate discussions that go around in circles, that feeling in the pit of my stomach of getting nowhere grates on me.

Secondly my opinion from using 7.1 surround and my stereo headphones (which are fairly good grade) is that 7.1 is FAR superior to Enhanced Stereo, as it's application is quicker and cheaper and the processor strain trying to load the sound locations etc in real time is virtually nothing these days and can be done through a simple sound card.

Like you, I'll use BF3 as an example, they had to record a vast number of sounds with a large number of microphones to gauge the sound distances for a single weapon firing mode on the same weapon, this was for Enhanced stereo. I'm going to guess, and this is a guess, that the computer would have to get the distance of the player from the sound source, select the sound from the HUGE list decompress it (bear in mind the sounds will be large files) possibly add effects (such as the sound controlled shake) and feed it back through the headphones = strain, and the location could be inaccurate.

I remember a game running on my PC that used a single sound for a single firing mode, and through surround sound, It would gauge the distance from my character's head, add the necessary effects in real time and feed it back to me, worked the same, okay so the sound quality was terrible due to the compression method used, but the distancing was accurate, you following?

there are also some games out there that Don't have enhanced stereo, personally I hate BF3, it's full of cocky thirteen year olds who have yet to grow a pair, and I don't play it, but one of Frostbite 2's main focuses was sound, and older engines I use such as Ike, don't have that tech. Most games on Yeti, I believe doesn't have the tech, because the developers of the games were more motion capture orientated which personally matters more to me than clogging up my hard drive with vast amounts of sounds that could just be easily sent down a different channel.

Enhanced stereo is there for those who lack surround capabilities. I'm not going to say "oh, this game has enhanced stereo! bye bye £200 headset" then throw it away to use an inferior pair of headphones, and I don't think other surround users will give up their headsets as easily too.
 
Back
Top