Headphones vs Speakers and Subwoofer

What sounds better in your opinion. I think games sound way better and richer with head phones, then with speakers. And I just can't use speakers and a subwoofer at night when I will probably be playing Doom 3 the most because my Parents would complain, so I'm thinking a kick ass sound card with some kick ass sound prof headphones.

I am aiming at getting some good surround sound 5.1 speakers and a good sub along with the best sound card out there right now. Which reminds me, what is the best sound card right now?

I perfer the headphones. They're cheaper, they're clearer in sound, louder, and they help more in surround sound games where you need to use it to survive.

6.1 By the time doom3 comes out Ill be on my own so 6.1 turnd up loud.

I got the same problem as Anonymous : a big-assed set of speakers with a massive subwoofer but little opportunity to use them to their full potential.

Try the Audigy2 from Creative. I still rather like the Santa Cruz, from Turtle Beach, as a Creative alternative - though my FAVORITE soundcard is my brand new Nvidia Soundstorm. ^.~

Yeah, I've wondered about this too... can a simple pair of headphones reproduce the intended 3D sound environment of a game as well as say, six satellite speakers and a sub woofer? I don't know.

If you can't play Doom3 loud and you don't use the computer as your primary music CD player then I say go for some headphones. I would also recommend not buying the very best headphones... instead buy some decent ones and put the extra money towards nv30.

i dont know.. i will be buying a 5.1 sound speaker set and soundcard.

No. With only two speakers, headphones cannot represent sound as accurately as a proper 6.1 speaker setup can. However, a high-quality pair of headphones is more likely to sound better, as speakers require quite a bit of both knowledge and set-up to make them sound optimally.

Katarhyne said:

though my FAVORITE soundcard is my brand new Nvidia Soundstorm. ^.~

midi support on that card any good? I sick of my onboard chip. midi sounds like poop and you can't load any different soundbanks.

Well, it supports SF2s. So...what else did you want to know? :P

I love my headphones. With them I can play noisy games and play noisy music in the middle of the night without disturbing any of my neighbours.

Why would speakers sound better then headphones?

Usually a 4-speaker setup can't even be positioned properly to produce the intended effect, whatever the effect may be... Usually it is no effect. Gamers are just fooled into thinking that if they plug in 4-speakers and position them in a square pattern, they'll get this immersive psychotic sensation, taking them to a whole new world of realism.

Like, what's the point? There really is no sound realism in games anyway. Sound doesn't echo off of objects and walls. It's just cheap "environmental" audio that changes from effect to effect, like "Cave" and "Forest" and "Room 1" depending on where you are in the game. 4 speakers or 6.1 audio offers little more than a sense of "fillage" since sound is coming from all lateral directions.

Hey, ya know what... that's a good point. hah

But I think new games like Doom3 will have more realistic sound. But you're right, before Doom3, most 3D sound probably is pretty unrealistic anyway.

Will Doom 3 have realistic sound? I don't know. Maybe someone with the alpha knows. But it is up to developers to make realistic sound, and 99% of games don't have it.

Yeah, there is definately going to be support for sound reflection and sounds changing depending on if there is a line of sight to the sound source, etc..

I saw some stuff in the alpha that showed this.

So If I'm playing doom 3 and I've got speaker's all around me and the Hell Knight is sneaking up behind me, will I hear him creaping up, from just the back speaker's?

Anonymous said:

So If I'm playing doom 3 and I've got speaker's all around me and the Hell Knight is sneaking up behind me, will I hear him creaping up, from just the back speaker's?

Hmm... I've 5.1 here (well, I've no subwoofer) and my computer is positioned in the middle of the speakers but in the Alpha I was a little bit disappointed...it seemed that there were only only stereo effects, but I guess in the final release it will be the way you described above....
I mean, calculating the relative direction where the sound is coming from can't be very hard work to do....echo effects are another story, I don't think that they will calculate all the wave interferences :|

Makes you wonder what kind of sound system god has :p

Again, AndrewB doesn't know what he's talking about. Any game that uses A3D or EAX2 has basic sound reflection and anything that uses A3D2 or EAX HD has some pretty advanced sound dynamics, especially in the case of EAX Advanced HD. Four simultaneous sound environments, sound reflection, sound warping due to the material it's traveling through...

It's really not the responsibility of the game to have these things, but the responsibility of the sound hardware, just like it's the responsibility of your graphics card to have rasterizers, T&L hardware, etc etc. If your games sound like shit, it's likely because you have a shitty soundcard.

Anonymous, speakers sound better than headphones (at least with relation to environmental audio) because headphones cannot accurately reproduce the direction a sound is coming from.

Katarhyne said:

Anonymous, speakers sound better than headphones (at least with relation to environmental audio) because headphones cannot accurately reproduce the direction a sound is coming from.

It's not about how accurate the sound is, it's about how convincing it is. For example, many DVD movies sound incredibly realistic and immersive through simple headphones, relative to games. I was watching/listening LOTR through headphones the other day, and on several occasions I looked around thinking I heard something from real life, but it was actually the movie. So immersive and accurate audio can be delivered through headphones. Except that with movies, they have the time and manpower to perfect every little detail. The question is not whether immersive, convincing "fool your brain" audio can be delivered through headphones (since it can), but whether it can delivered through video games in real-time, and whether any games actually have this level of audio realism.

In my opinion, there's not much sense in getting 4-speaker setup unless you really know how to set it up, and if you're certain that the games you like to play actually deliver the effect that you intend. For example, let's say for whatever reason that you love playing JDoom. It has EAX effects support, but it's really nothing more than different levels of echo (using a SBLive). Absolutely not realistic at all. So just because a game supports EAX effects, there's no guarantee that it will sound the way it should. You may have to do research first.

By the way, I don't play many newer games, and I really know nothing about EAX2 and A3D.

Imo it depends on the person and how this person percieves things.

I find that a subwoofer and speakers with surround sound capability sound immersive in one way (yet not more realistic, because you begin to notice flaws after a while), whereas my headphones deliver really detailed sounds where I can perceive things I normally can't hear through even high-quality speakers with a high-quality sound card.

But like I thaid (said), it depends on the person and the perceptions of that person.

A question for the all-knowing Kat:

What's the deal with this card? It was reviewed in PCG, and got a 90%. It's decently priced, too.

Note: the alienware link is just a a little joke towards Kat, I wouldn't buy it from them =P

Revenant! said:

I've 5.1 here (well, I've no subwoofer)

In other words, 5.0 :)

Anyways, 7.1 sound is supposedly going to be here pretty soon. Which is no good for me because there's barely enough places for five speakers in my room, let alone seven and a sub. As it is I have to have them at different heights, which is less than ideal.

That's in my room at university though. I left that lot at home, and here I've got a really crappy pair of speakers which I picked up on holiday the summer before last. I've had to turn the bass to minimum, and even then you have to keep the volume pretty low or they distort :(

I'm getting some very nice Sony headphones (which cost around £40, or $64) for Christmas, so I'll be using them instead until I go back to uni.

What's the deal with it? Dunno, haven't messed with it. Looks very nice, though. I'll check into it and get back with you.

Katarhyne said:

What's the deal with it? Dunno, haven't messed with it. Looks very nice, though. I'll check into it and get back with you.

Ok, cool.

NiGHTMARE said:

Anyways, 7.1 sound is supposedly going to be here pretty soon. Which is no good for me because there's barely enough places for five speakers in my room, let alone seven and a sub. As it is I have to have them at different heights, which is less than ideal.

That's in my room at university though. I left that lot at home, and here I've got a really crappy pair of speakers which I picked up on holiday the summer before last. I've had to turn the bass to minimum, and even then you have to keep the volume pretty low or they distort :(
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Hmm, I think for home-use that with 5.1 is really enough...at least if you haven't a 40m^2 room....
Game producers (and others) should first get used to use 5.1 everywhere before bombarding them with 7.1...but, hmm... well I don't know....(argh, I keep using to much of those points...(doh))

On the other side, if you haven't mid- to high-end speakers the whole thing isn't worse to use 7.1 and well with 8 speakers its going to be expensive. I don't want to spent so much money unless I have a seperate gaming and movie room with a popcorn machine and some cinema chairs ;)

the only thing I have noticed with 3+ speaker systems is just that it is louder, and the sound is in more places.
headphones give the same effect for the most part.
IMO..

Anyone I know that works in the sound design business swears by headphones. Of course surround sound speakers are pretty nifty. The only major drawback I can see to headphones is that you dont get the room shaking effect of a subwoofer.

Right now I have a subwoofer and a pair of speakers from my old stereo, and they work fine. The sound is great and the bass is loud and clear. I'd get a surround sound card, which isnt too much money, but then I'd need to buy a new set of good speakers, which can cost alot of money. Also, it took me years to tweak the sound and get my speakers sounding just the way I want them to. I dont want to have to go through that again.