So today as a birthday present my parents gave me these...

I'm always on ventrilo, talking to my friends, and gaming so it only makes sense as up to this point the only thing I've ever used is a chocolatety mic that came with the rosetta stone software. So when I first received this present I thought it would be great; however, I was a little skeptical of the "Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound" the headset claimed to have. I've also come to consider myself a bit of an audiophile over the years of shoveling out hundreds of dollars on sound cards speakers and various cables and I was curious if the headset could live up to my expectations.

so when I first got them I was a little skeptical but I took them back to my room I plugged them in and after messing with about 5 audio leveling dials I got everything working and was quite content. I looked at the windows audio settings and the microphone offers no higher/better sampling rate than that of the of the free mic that came with the rosetta stone software, whatever, get on vent. I setup vent to use the headset. Now one of the things this headset does that seems pretty interesting is that it actually has 2 audio channels or two sets of speakers. It has one from the USB port and one from the 3.5mm audio jack that come with it. This enables you to listen to voice on one and have "Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound" on the other. In addition to this there is a little device that comes with the headset that goes in between the headset and the computer...

this

The dolby surround sound processor. And what does this due? "The Ear Force DSS 5.1/7.1 channel Dolby surround sound processor transforms any stereo analog headset into full, immersive surround sound" So to save more time writing this than I want to right now because I'm pissed off. Turtle beach fudgeed up, this doesn't work... and here's why.

The USB port that runs into the surround sound processor gives it power and then directly forwards whatever USB device is plugged into it into the computer. It's USB port serves no greater purpose that to act like a usb HUB and keep the slot that it takes up open. The only thing the "Dolby Surround Sound Processor" does is take whatever input you put into it and turn it into a 3.5 mm analog signal with some mother fucking magic into it. Now if you connect a 3.5mm stereo audio jack into this device, that's all fine and dandy. You just dropped the money on it's $89.95 USD (at the time of writing) price tag to throw some magic in your stereo signal. But the best part is, if you plug a fully digital 7.1 optical toslink cable into this device (which it does support) you just payed $89.95 USD to degrade your FULLY DIGITAL SIGNAL into an ANALOG PEICE OF SHIT with some MOTHERFUCKING MAGIC sprinkled on top. So here's to Turtle Beach and Dobly (who allegedly made this device) making you ACTUALLY PAY THEM MONEY for this device that will degrade your audio signal/quality...

Now in the perfect world had you not fudgeed this up and done this right...
The USB cable would link to an actual USB sound card that does 7.1 surround sound processing and sends it directly to the headset via the headsets USB cable, since this chocolatety black "Dolby Surround Sound Processor" sits in between these two devices anyway, you might as well have a device that actually does something useful. And you would allow the 3.5mm audio jack to plug into the systems sound card and be assigned to be used for voice chat since voice is something that is usually handled through a mic (a mono input) can be upscaled to a stereo input and no audio degradation occurs. So to Turtle Beach and Dolby Digital, may the fuck be with you.



I swear to god I wish I could post this to cnet or somewhere where people who might actually but this thing could see it

I think no matter what it was you'd complain in some way you never actually said anything about the relative quality to you, just complained about standards and analog/digital, not whether it actually made any difference.

I'm not complaining about the present
I was very happy my parents thought to get me anything
and up until the point where I realized how this wouldn't work  I was rather excited and told them I loved it

it was only after the audiophile in me realized why this wouldn't work that I told them wee would have to take it back
and they, being the wonderful understanding people that they were told me that was okay


If you want something that is somehow "magically" as a step up from normal headphones I guess this is fine
but if you're any kind of audiophile who actually spent 200 USD ( I spent 250) on a sound card with 7.1 optical audio capabilities
the fact that you even have to spend money on the DSS to downgrade your signal is unacceptable never mind the actual money you spent on the headphones.

define: sufficient for voice
On a ventrilo server running GSM (the standard if you don't use shitty speex wee sample with 16bit 44.1Khz

digital signal will have to be converted to analog eventually but usually through individual drivers in order to produce something with true surround sound (I.E. Razer Tiamat)

and as for who would do that
I did
I payed 250 USD for a sound card that can output and input optical signal at 24 bit 192Khz because I don't want any quality degradation... in order to pay additional money to have them fudge up this perfect signal is unacceptable

basically you're paying lots of money for absolutely no audible difference in quality.

what about dem wav files