Chastity's Review of Virtual Surround Solutions

I really like Waves NX, it sucks they don't sell it anymore, my serial number has been used too much now to reactivate it

 

WHAT? I have it installed on my current W7Pro system so when I upgrade and reinstall it, I cannot?

What is the serial key limit?

 

I'm not sure, 5 uses maybe. I reformat a lot.

 

IIRC you can use the Waves Account Manager Tool to manage your activations, and cancel some.

 

Customer Support for Waves reset my activations, they're great

 

awesome! enjoy your head measurements

 

Hi @Chastity. What a great review you have over here! Im currently using a modded version from AAF Optimus with DTS Sound Unbound. It works alright just like the official one. Was using previously Creative X-Fi MB3, while it seems okay for gaming, didnt seem that great for movie watching. What do you think about hesuvi and its various HRTF? Its worth it? I can activate natively 5.1 in my realtek. Thanks again for your great review!

 

Personally I never got involved with HeSuVi because of some of it's limitations. And getting licenses for the other apps were inexpensive. (Except for SBX, since that involved getting hardware)

@gabsvm Thank you for the praise

As for MB3, that's just another iteration of SBX, and has the same limitations for rear cues. These days I am still using Redscape as it supports 96KHz sample rates and I like their room model vs open field models.

 

Made an account specifically to say that if you buy certain Turtle Beach headsets they include Waves NX 3D as part of the driver and you can customize it using the TB Control Studio application. For me, I have the Elite Atlas Aero headset from them ($150 MSRP). This version of Waves NX 3D does have the ear-to-ear semicircle circumference measurement feature.

 

Hi @Chastity, there is new software suite from Steelseries Sonar, is free and with a lot of options and VSS. Can you give your impressions? (4) SteelSeries Sonar Audio Software Suite - YouTube

 

They are almost 100% going to have to change that name at some point...

https://www.cakewalk.com/products/SONAR

Beyond that though... I can't find any details on there website as to what is powering this so it definitely has me curious as well.

 

Oh... they bought Nahimic in 2020. So I would say it's probably a safe guess that is what is powering the spatial audio engine here.

https://steelseries.com/blog/welcome-a-volute-nahimic-steelseries-family-202

 

Yay, new VSS to test

So I installed it, and it operates like any other VSS where it uses a virtual sound device and redirects the output to your DAC, just like how Nahimic did it for years. You have to create a SteelSeries account to get access to the Sonar application through their GG app. Once installed, you have access to an EQ and several game profiles. You also have an adjuster on the HRTF effect, whether you want more directional precision or immersion. Unfortunately, the rest of the Advanced features, like volume adjustments per virtual channel and distance adjustments, is disabled unless you are using a qualified SteelSeries product.

I've had Nahimic products before, as my Asus mobo uses a Nahimic based product for their onboard audio, and it works OK, but I still prefer Waves NX and Redscape. Without the Advanced features you cannot hyper-tune your headphone to your ears, and adjust the timings like you can with Waves NX and Redscape. But it's free, and better than Windows Sonics.

EDIT: One nice feature is that from the Setting/General tab you can disable Sonar, and it uninstalls the virtual audio device w/o uninstalling GG. So you can have it enabled only when you want it.

 

I already tested it and i can say that is excellent for being free. I was using realtek drivers modded drivers before but always have some kind of bug or the software suites have incomplete features, after all are mods. The directional sounds are very good, on par ore better than sbx that always have been my favorite. The other features are really nice, you can choose to use it or not without uninstalling it, volume mixer, eq, the presets are ok, smart volume and a volume gain slider (which any mod i was using before have and very handy for me with a alc 662 chipset, i dont have dacs or anything else to boost the volume). I really liked Sound Unbound too, the hrtf is the best to my ears but dont have anything to boost the volume, there are things that sound very low with my setup, so i wasnt the best for every case. So far i say is worth is you dont have money to spend in good solutions like Redscape or Waves NX and dont to tinker around with realtek modded drivers.

 

Recently TODAY, my audio went out. I was pulling hair until I realized WavesNX reverted back to TRIAL. I paid for my activation and when I tried to reactivate, it would not work.

The app cannot detect the internet for some reason. I wrote to their CS.

Anybody else have this issue?

 

Gross. Absolutely disgusting. Thats all I have to add to this thread.

 

Waves NX still activated here.

 

I've been reading up on the Microsoft Spatial Sound API in Windows 10+. Windows Sonic for Headphones is just a rendering technique like Dolby Atmos Headphones and DTS Headphone:X. The real thing is the Microsoft Spatial Sound system (ISAC - ISpatialAudioClient /Object), whereas the typical stuff is done through a Windows Audio Session (WASAPI - IAudioClient).

It's basically Dolby Atmos (and competing object-based 3-D audio formats), but for Windows. It doesn't show up in your audio control panel, though. For headphones, it has 17 fixed-position channels (8.1.4.4 - 8 surround, 1 subwoofer, 4 overhead speakers, 4 "beneath" speakers). Over HDMI output, the fixed position speakers are limited to 7.1.4.0 (who puts speakers underground?). On top of the 17 fixed position channels, it also has up to 16 dynamic-position sound objects for Dolby Atmos Headphones, and up to 32 dynamic-position sound objects for DTS Headphones:X, and 112 dynamic-position sound objects for Windows Sonic for Headphones. Dolby Atmos Headphones is technically the most limited one under Microsoft Spatial Sound, after HDMI output.

The Microsoft Spatial Surround system is not a HRTF solution in itself. It is a malleable speaker/ 3-D sound object placement system. It places sound sources on an ideal sphere around the listener's head (from the 17 fixed positions and dynamic sound objects). Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos Headphones, and DTS Headphone:X are the different HRTF/ filtering DSPs that produce the headphone virtual surround effect - again, NOT the MSS system itself. In fact, the video game/ software program is responsible for pretty much everything else like Doppler shifting, environmental reverb, distance attenuation, occlusion, etc. before it even gets sent to the MSS system. Again, MSS is just a virtual speaker system with dynamic audio objects added in.

So after doing research on it, I think I can make sense of what some games' audio options really mean. If a game uses MSS, it asks what your output device is like HDMI or Dolby/ DTS/ Sonic Headphone, and creates the appropriate number of fixed and dynamic channels AND provides the correct distance attenuation, dynamic range compression, reverb, etc. because, again, MSS doesn't do that. I think Microsoft put in so much dynamic sound objects into sonic because that HRTF is built into the MSS API, no Dolby or DTS needed... It's 112 to 32 or 16... This would give them a leg up... if you like the HRTF quality of Sonic, that is.

In particular, the recent Resident Evil games. REmake 2 launched with Atmos support and binaural headphone support. Obviously with Atmos enabled, the GAME renders/ encodes everything to the Atmos' defined speaker positions and also the 3-D sound objects for decoding on your A/V receiver; or now the Atmos decoder included in the Windows Dolby Access app... where the data is then HRTF'ed via Atmos Headphones. On the other hand, selecting the Binaural Headphone option in the game, makes the GAME all the HRTF with all the 3-D sources in the game... no extra software needed... just stereo output. What HRTF technology do they use? Who knows, ask them.

Now in June with the ray-tracing updates, Resident Evil 2 remake added "3-D Audio" and oddly, the binaural option is gone. I think this means that they stopped relying on specifically Dolby Atmos for 3-D sound rendering... probably to save money. Using the 3-D Audio option, just invokes the MSS system... then you can use Sonic, DTS, Dolby, or whatever to get your HRTF Headphone output.

So why do these recent RE games also ask for the type of of audio device? Again, it's because the game itself is responsible for most of the filters, occlusion, distance drop off, doppler shifting, etc. and those depend on if you're using a speaker system, crappy TV, or headphone. That audio device option, does not invoke surround virtualization by itself.

Again, the easy solution is for game devs to just include a binaural option and leave Windows out of doing anything about it... just that just leaves them with using, usually, one Headphone surround provider. The cheaper, royalty-free version is just pass everything off to the Microsoft Spatial Sound system, and let the user select what output technology they want to run.

Why doesn't Microsoft just give everyone 17 channel virtual speakers and tack on the 3-D sound objects with an API just for that specifically? Probably so they push a new API and charge money for it.

I really wish game devs would explain some of this better

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/coreaudio/spatial-sound

 

I was doing more reading on it, and an important note is the difference between Dolby Atmos for home theaters and Dolby Atmos for cinemas and Dolby Atmos Headphone.

Particularly, that Dolby Atmos in home theaters IS actually channel based with 3-D object panning metadata... Not "true" track and position like in cinema Atmos or in a 3-D game engine. It uses 24.1.10 channels with the panning metadata to simulate a 7.1.4 + 20 or so 3-D sound objects - and your decoder does the processing to make it sound seamless. This is what a game does when you select Dolby Atmos output to an HDMI output.

Dolby Atmos Headphone will take that Dolby Atmos home theater metadata for the simulated sound objects and place them in an ideal sphere around you as best it can (compared to true track and object based Cinema Dolby Atmos) and then slap on the HRTF and filters. The audio is not rendered down to 24.1.10 virtual speakers by Atmos Headphone first, then HRTF'ed. The virtual objects are HRTF'ed from an idealized "infinite" number of 3-D positions (as best can be calculated from the limits of Dolby Atmos for home theaters compared to the cinema).

Ideally, a modern game will just use the Microsoft Spatial Sound system (even if through middleware plug-ins) and totally bypass any Atmos, DTS:X, etc. encoding. Then let your selected Spatial Sound format from the device properties do the HRTF'ing.

Is RE2 smart enough to by pass any Atmos encoding when "3D audio" is enabled with DTS or Dolby Headphone or Windows Sonic selected along with Atmos selected in the "Audio Output Device" in the RE2 menu?

If I select Headphones in the Audio Output Device and turn off 3D Audio in RE2, does that bypass the Spatial Sound format (Dolby Atmos for Headphones or DTS Headphone:X or Windows Sonic)? Does turning on "Virtual Surround" in RE Village or "3D Audio" in RE2 remake RT simply invoke the Microsoft Spacial Sound system and negate the Audio Output Device option?

If it does, Capcom needs to shoot the menu designer for their games because using HRTF straight from Microsoft Spatial Sound 3-D sound objects is technically more accurate than HRTF from the home theater implementation of Dolby Atmos.

Eh... I'm 99% of the game developers on a title don't even know what's going on in the audio stack with all the middleware and plug-ins for the middleware, etc.

 

I got an email from Waves CS and they said they do not support it anymore. They offered to send me the last exe file which I already have.

I found out if I install and uninstall it every 30 days it still works but I cannot register my paid for key... sigh... If anyone has any ideas, let me know... The Waves NX control panel would not connect to their server or claims there is no internet. Double sigh...sigh