# Dolby Atmos for Headphones now available in Windows 10



## JohnnyReef

After the Creator Update in Windows 10 i noticed i had a new menu in my sound panel. Spatial Audio. Here you can select Sonic Audio or Dolby Atmos. Really struggling to hear the difference between Dolby Atmos for Headphones compared to Dolby Headphone for example. With Atmos it uses 2 channel and Dolby Headphone uses a 5.1 or 7.1 channels but they sound very much the same.


----------



## seeteeyou

https://mspoweruser.com/dolby-atmos-app-now-available-windows-10-devices/
  
 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/dolby-access/9n0866fs04w8
  


> Support for Dolby Atmos over HDMI to your home theater or sound bar is enabled for free when you install this app. And when you’re ready to experience the same breakthrough audio experience over headphones, this app allows you to try or buy Dolby Atmos for Headphones.


 
  


> Tested the trial and worked perfectly. Today, once I had ran out of the trial I decided to purchase for the 15$... After purchase I was directed to re-enable the atmos through the program and any time I try to enable it in spatial sound it reverts back to none before I even have the option to apply it. I have reinstalled windows and uninstalled/reinstalled audio drivers with no luck. I believe the app is the problem. A pretty big feature that's baked into the creators update is broken. I spoke with support and all I was offered was a refund for the purchase. I thought we were done with beta testing for the creators update.


 
  
 15 bucks for a broken feature? Probably not until that's fixed.


----------



## pinnahertz

johnnyreef said:


> After the Creator Update in Windows 10 i noticed i had a new menu in my sound panel. Spatial Audio. Here you can select Sonic Audio or Dolby Atmos. Really struggling to hear the difference between Dolby Atmos for Headphones compared to Dolby Headphone for example. With Atmos it uses 2 channel and Dolby Headphone uses a 5.1 or 7.1 channels but they sound very much the same.


 
 Dolby Atmos has always had upmixing built in.  It takes 5.1 or 7.1 and creates signals to "light up" all those expensive Atmos speakers you paid for so they're not just sitting there doing nothing.  That's because there is so little real Atmos content as compared to 5.1, that without up-mix, mostly those speakers would remain dead silent, and that's no way to make the consumer feel good about investing in them.  Some find the up-mix function pleasing, others find it annoying. And some no doubt never notice it at all.   
  
 It looks like the Windows app does three things, it takes actual Atmos content and creates HRTF based localizations for those signals when listening on headphones, and it up-mixes non-Atmos content to create Atmos-ish content, and passes Atmos audio over HDMI to another Atmos capable device.  So, very similar to what goes on with Atmos in home theater systems.
  
 Listening in headphones, unless you are giving the app actual Atmos content to chew on it couldn't be expected to do much more than Dolby Headphone.  Remember, the Atmos upmix is just a set of algorithms designed to create Atmos-ish content from non-Atmos material.  It's not extracting actual positional information (there isn't any), it's _creating_ those signals, hopefully at least somewhat intelligently. But, at the end of the day, those signals are fakes.  When that track was mixed the creators never placed anything intentionally in the location of Atmos speakers, virtual or real. 
  
 Real Atmos soundtracks can place an "object" in a location with specificity limited by the number of Atmos speakers available.  Very different from up-mixing.


----------



## JohnnyReef

But the big question is, is it worth paying money for when you have Dolby Headphone? Is it an updated and better version of Dolby Headphone. Why pay for this when we have CMSS3D (Creative Users) and Dolby Headphone available. 
 Im talking about Dolby Atmos for Headphones only now.


----------



## Jacobh

I was a little disappointed to find out the headphone feature was $15 after Dolby Atmos support was presented as being included for free in the update.  I realize that the HDMI output is free, but the headphone feature was called out in all the preview material.
  
 I was also a bit underwhelmed with the demonstration videos.  I prefer the samples I've heard of Creative SBX or Dolby Headphone for movies/games.  The overall effect was more subtle with Atmos and I had trouble locating sound sources in comparison.  For music, Dolby Atmos was better for me.  Upmixing and virtual surround on headphones has always sounded strange to me and usually sounds like it's just adding a lot of reverb and muddying up the sound.   Atmos pretty much eliminated the reverb effect and did increase the sound-field width such that I didn't find it distracting.  That being said, I think well recorded music is going to sound better without any effect.
  
 For games/movies I'd personally look at Creative's software solution (or Dolby Headphone if your soundcard/motherboard supports it), or a dedicated sound card with virtual surround capabilities.  For music, Atmos might be a better bet if you like virtual surround upmixing on stereo music.   
  
 One advantage with Dolby Atmos via Windows might be that if it's tied to your user account you can use it with any system attached to your Microsoft account.  Most other software solutions are per computer licensed.  I'm not sure if this is the case or not.


----------



## AxelCloris

I haven't tried out the Windows Creator update yet, but if the integrated Atmos is the same as the Dolby Atmos that comes with Overwatch on PC, I'll definitely spend $15 for it. I use an Asus card that outputs Dolby Headphone over optical to my Mojo for gaming, and I really enjoy DH for most games. That said, I cannot use anything but the included Atmos for Overwatch anymore because the height cues are a must with that game. There are several character that have vertical movement and elevation is a key aspect for positional accuracy. If I can bring the same elevation cues that I get in Overwatch to other games, then $15 is cheap investment.
  
 I may install this update on my home machine later and play around with the Atmos option. If I can get it processing through my Mojo via USB then I'll be ecstatic.


----------



## JohnnyReef

axelcloris said:


> I haven't tried out the Windows Creator update yet, but if the integrated Atmos is the same as the Dolby Atmos that comes with Overwatch on PC, I'll definitely spend $15 for it. I use an Asus card that outputs Dolby Headphone over optical to my Mojo for gaming, and I really enjoy DH for most games. That said, I cannot use anything but the included Atmos for Overwatch anymore because the height cues are a must with that game. There are several character that have vertical movement and elevation is a key aspect for positional accuracy. If I can bring the same elevation cues that I get in Overwatch to other games, then $15 is cheap investment.
> 
> I may install this update on my home machine later and play around with the Atmos option. If I can get it processing through my Mojo via USB then I'll be ecstatic.


 
 Yeah would be interesting to hear your opinion. I guess you need to turn it off though if you enable it in Overwatch and vice versa. Or else you have two software doing the same.


----------



## AxelCloris

johnnyreef said:


> Yeah would be interesting to hear your opinion. I guess you need to turn it off though if you enable it in Overwatch and vice versa. Or else you have two software doing the same.


 
  
 Yeah, you should only have one DSP active or you could run into potential issues. Atmos has become indispensable for Overwatch, but if I can have it enabled at the system level rather than the game level I'd prefer that, since it can be used with more (all?) games.


----------



## Clovis559

That picture linked above by Seeteeyou is mine, cool mini yay 
  
 Atmos isn't always upmixed. There is content out there, just not a lot of it:
 Battlefield 1
 Battlefront
 Movies - Select few, and even fewer that you might want to actually watch.
 Dolby Access App Demos
 Dolby Atmos Test Tones.
 (Actually, I haven't come acrossed content that is upmixed. When I listen to non Atmos content, nothing comes out of my height speakers. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I just haven't come acrossed it.)
  
 If you watch Ninja Turtles through the built in "Movies and Tv" in windows, you can actually select the Atmos audio track. That's the only Atmos movie I have so far, I'm hoping to get Hancock.
 As far as Overwatch goes, it's only through the built in setting. Those with receivers are out of luck. Zero Height sound. Dolby Atmos for Headphones = same boat. It's only by the built in setting.
  
 Dolby Access App has a ton of issues for everyone. It always seems to be temporarily remedied for some random amount of time by: Uninstall, restart, reinstall. For all the content I've found, the Dolby Atmos for headphones (Windows setting) doesn't work in any Atmos content I have found. You cannot enable it in Battlefield 1/Battlefront and you cannot watch movies with it. I did read somewhere that using an old game like Diablo3 (Where you can select 5.1/7.1 through the audio setup) created quite a noticeable difference, but that same user also stated he noticed no difference in newer titles.
  
 Since the Dolby Access App came out to the public on April 5/6 (Whichever). It's been updated many times for better or worse. Let's hope that they keep working on it. As far as my receiver, goes, I can fidget to get the spatial sound setting to work, but I'm not sure what I'm actually getting. I can still play games and watch movies in Atmos with it off. So for now I leave it off. (Well it turns itself off, I just gave up turning it back on).
 Don't bang your head too hard trying to get this thing to work.


----------



## tbritton

I tried Dolby Atmos for Headphones tonight using my Shure SE846 listening to an HRTF recording I made using Sonic Studios' microphones of the fireworks at Tweetsie Railroad in NC a few years ago. This recording has both a segment with the "legal" fireworks being set off by families in the vicinity before the "big" fireworks started, and the entire "big" fireworks show with its thundering echos off the Blue Ridge Mountains surrounding us. There is no doubt in my mind that it improved the positional accuracy over hearing it without the Dolby Atmos turned on, and was superior in that regard to the Windows Sonic for Headphones option as well, though that also did improve positional resolution. _Which was a pleasure to hear, _since I have many field recordings made with those microphones that will be enhanced by this effect. The fireworks seem to have a beefier presence and individual fireworks quite definitely can be "pointed at" location-wise -- and height information _seems _to be conveying as well, especially with the whistling rockets and their retorts. This is the best playback experience I have had coming from that field recording setup. (Sonic Studio mics into a Sony PCM-1 portable DAT recorder)
  
 So, one happy customer at the moment, at least for field recordings!
  
 I am listening now to Ligeti's "Apparitions" by Berliner Philharmoniker and it also seems to be benefiting from the positional cues nicely, but for that the Windows Sonic for Headphones works well also. But I'll have to give it more listening time to decide whether I like it with musical performances. The Dolby Atmos seems to be glitching every so often with a drop-out, while Windows Sonic for Headphones never did that. We'll see how it goes!
  
 Terry


----------



## tbritton

HRTF CUES and Binaural Playback -- Having read that both Windows Sonic for Headphones and Dolby Atmos for Headphones *rely upon HRTF cues*, I've just posted at my Binaural thread about these, wondering how people are experiencing Binaural and HRTF recordings using these tools. To me, field recordings played back via Dolby Atmos for Headphones are very noticeably better, with smoother transitions between locations and a "rounder" sound to the details than Windows Sonic for Headphones, but the latter sounds better for music as the bass is a bit overblown in Dolby Atmos for my tastes for musical playback.
  
*Here is the post.* 
  
 You will find links to many examples to listen to at my "*Legally Downloadable Binaral Recordings Links*" thread in the Music section here.
  
 Very interested to hear people's experiences and opinions over there on the Binaural materials!
  
 Terry


----------



## BrightCandle

tbritton said:


> HRTF CUES and Binaural Playback -- Having read that both Windows Sonic for Headphones and Dolby Atmos for Headphones *rely upon HRTF cues*, I've just posted at my Binaural thread about these, wondering how people are experiencing Binaural and HRTF recordings using these tools. To me, field recordings played back via Dolby Atmos for Headphones are very noticeably better, with smoother transitions between locations and a "rounder" sound to the details than Windows Sonic for Headphones, but the latter sounds better for music as the bass is a bit overblown in Dolby Atmos for my tastes for musical playback.
> 
> *Here is the post.*
> 
> ...


 
  
 That isn't how this works however. Dolby Atmos uses location information in the audio stream to place audio in a dome of sound and then processes that at playback time to come out of the right speakers or with the right HRTF for headphones. If you give it a binaural recording that is 2.0 with none of that information. So if you then play that back via Dolby atmos it is either going to do nothing with it or do something we don't full understand. The most obvious thing it can do is assume you had a 7.1.4 surround system around you and play the two channels of sound from the front left and right speakers as if they were ~1m away. But its binaural recording, that will cause a lot of crosstalk and other things that ought to ruin the effect.
  
 So I don't understand the feedback you are giving, it doesn't match with how the techology works.


----------



## tbritton

brightcandle said:


> That isn't how this works however. Dolby Atmos uses location information in the audio stream to place audio in a dome of sound and then processes that at playback time to come out of the right speakers or with the right HRTF for headphones. If you give it a binaural recording that is 2.0 with none of that information. So if you then play that back via Dolby atmos it is either going to do nothing with it or do something we don't full understand. The most obvious thing it can do is assume you had a 7.1.4 surround system around you and play the two channels of sound from the front left and right speakers as if they were ~1m away. But its binaural recording, that will cause a lot of crosstalk and other things that ought to ruin the effect.
> 
> So I don't understand the feedback you are giving, it doesn't match with how the techology works.


 
 There really is no question but that my field recordings sound better using the Dolby Atmos for Headphones setting. Theory aside, it definitely reproduces those better than without. I have a feeling you are missing something about the theory, though. I will look for references to point you to regarding the HRTF component of Dolby Atmos if I can find them -- info is pretty scanty at the moment other than on using the API, where you can synthesize an HRTF position.
  
 Terry


----------



## BrightCandle

tbritton said:


> There really is no question but that my field recordings sound better using the Dolby Atmos for Headphones setting. Theory aside, it definitely reproduces those better than without. I have a feeling you are missing something about the theory, though. I will look for references to point you to regarding the HRTF component of Dolby Atmos if I can find them -- info is pretty scanty at the moment other than on using the API, where you can synthesize an HRTF position.
> 
> Terry


 
 The point is a binaural recording has all the HRTF's built into the audio. When you record using fake (or real ears) you have already introduced all the binaural effect. You don't need a HRTF because it already has been processed with one before it got to the stereo microphone. Adding another one treating that input as 2.0 ought to be worse, it is when do that with SBX Pro and the Sennheiser GSX 1000.


----------



## tbritton

As I said in reply to immersifi at the thread starting here at my binaural page, it seems to me that for Dolby Atmos, HRTF is the playing field and enhanced reproduction of HRTF is the Dolby Atmos for Headphones game. It seems to enhance the reproduction of the phase and absorption cues. Now, this is not necessarily all there is to its multi-speaker array reproduction (I'm certain not). The API info I glanced at seems to describe how to synthesize HRTF positioning info in a panner, to add it where it did not exist before.
  
 I'm watching both of these threads, so please do continue the conversation in either one.
  
 I am entirely open to being proven that what I'm hearing are "unintended effects" of the tool (though wonderful, to me!), but what I've found so far (in this rarefied atmosphere of info on this) is that Dolby Atmos for Headphones is enhancing HRTF repro.
  
 Terry


----------



## Jacobh

If you are feeding it a two channel source it's just up-mixing and applying its hrtf to the upmix. 

If you recorded these binaurally (with microphones in each of your ears) then the recording wouldn't need a hrtf since it has already captured your specific hrtf. Adding additional hrtf could not make it more accurate. 

The upmixing is probably just exaggaeratting the effect a bit which you may like and may seem more realistic. However, if it's your own binaural recording adding. More processing can't technically make it more accurate. 

I have some of my own binaural recordings so I'll give it a try if I have any time left on my demo. 

As far as I can tell there is now way to use this with actual multichannel source material using an external spiff DAC so I'm not going to purchase it now.


----------



## tbritton

jacobh said:


> If you are feeding it a two channel source it's just up-mixing and applying its hrtf to the upmix.
> 
> If you recorded these binaurally (with microphones in each of your ears) then the recording wouldn't need a hrtf since it has already captured your specific hrtf. Adding additional hrtf could not make it more accurate.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I'd like to see a reference that it is "applying its hrtf to the upmix" -- so you are saying it takes panning info and synthesizes HRTF from that, I take it. Not sure about that - methinks it is enhancing the phase relationships of the stereo pan input, however, I am definitely underscoring, "not sure about that" on my end!
  
 There are many ways to enhance the reproduction of phase and absorption information - see the comments about SOFA made by immersifi at the other thread. 
  
 This is a fascinating discussion! I'll provide documentation as I discover it on both threads.
  
 Terry


----------



## tbritton

Here is the link to the Dolby Atmos Creators Update page.
  
 Interesting statement here:


> And with the native support of Dolby Atmos on Windows 10, the Creators Update makes Microsoft Edge the first browser to support Dolby Atmos encoded content in HTML 5–based websites,


 
 Terry


----------



## tbritton

Here is Microsoft's "Spatial Sound" page.
  
 Terry


----------



## Jacobh

tbritton said:


> I'd like to see a reference that it is "applying its hrtf to the upmix" -- so you are saying it takes panning info and synthesizes HRTF from that, I take it. Not sure about that - methinks it is enhancing the phase relationships of the stereo pan input, however, I am definitely underscoring, "not sure about that" on my end!
> 
> There are many ways to enhance the reproduction of phase and absorption information - see the comments about SOFA made by immersifi at the other thread.
> 
> ...


 
  
 I do not know for sure.  I am basing my assumption off of the marketing material for Dolby Headphone (their older headphone technology).  The marketing material for that claims it uses Dolby Pro Logic II: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-headphone.html.  Dolby Pro Logic II will up mix a  standard stereo source to 5.1: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-pro-logic-ii.html even if it's not a pro logic encoded source.  
  
 The marketing material is not completely clear, so it is possible there is no upmix involved.  It's also possible Atmos works differently. 
  
 Either way, I think we both agree this could only make a binaural recording less accurate.  That doesn't mean it would sound worse to everyone.  I didn't find whatever Atmos for headphones is doing all that compelling on stereo content.  I couldn't get it to work with any of the 5.1 content where Dolby Headphone does a decent job.


----------



## Jacobh

tbritton said:


> Here is Microsoft's "Spatial Sound" page.
> 
> Terry





That's just documentation on the API which lets a program create a 5.1 source. The good news is that this should make it easier for games / apps to support 5.1 sound without having to license any Dolby technologies directly.


----------



## Clovis559

jacobh said:


> I do not know for sure.  I am basing my assumption off of the marketing material for Dolby Headphone (their older headphone technology).  The marketing material for that claims it uses Dolby Pro Logic II: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-headphone.html.  Dolby Pro Logic II will up mix a  standard stereo source to 5.1: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-pro-logic-ii.html even if it's not a pro logic encoded source.
> 
> The marketing material is not completely clear, so it is possible there is no upmix involved.  It's also possible Atmos works differently.
> 
> Either way, I think we both agree this could only make a binaural recording less accurate.  That doesn't mean it would sound worse to everyone.  I didn't find whatever Atmos for headphones is doing all that compelling on stereo content.  I couldn't get it to work with any of the 5.1 content where Dolby Headphone does a decent job.


 
  
 That's not upmixing from stereo.
  
 Quoted from the link you posted: "Dolby Headphone works with the full range of 5.1-channel content, including movies, TV shows, and games. It offers a convenient way to enjoy surround sound even if you don't have a 5.1-channel setup at home."
  
 The content was already 5.1.


----------



## Jacobh

clovis559 said:


> That's not upmixing from stereo.
> 
> Quoted from the link you posted: "[COLOR=666666]Dolby Headphone works with the full range of 5.1-channel content, including movies, TV shows, and games. It offers a convenient way to enjoy surround sound even if you don't have a 5.1-channel setup at home."[/COLOR]
> 
> The content was already 5.1.




Read the next bullet point on the page:

From Stereo into Surround 

"When combined with Dolby Pro Logic® II, Dolby Headphone can transform content from a two-channel (stereo) source into surround sound for a richer listening experience.

Marketing for all the computer implementations of Dolby Headphone (Asus, Realtek, etc. ) advertise in a similar manner. Is it possible it just takes stereo sourced and tries to place them in a simulated 2.0 speaker configuration and the marketing is misleading? Yes. It may also be that Dolby Headphone does not have to upsample, but most PC implementations utilize it with Pro Logic since they since they think it will sell better. 

I brought up Dolby Headphone since it can be used to take a guess about how Dolby Atmos for headphones works. Atmos could work differently and there is very little detail about the Windows plugin that I've found.


----------



## tbritton

I went to the http://developer.dolby.com site and created a free developer's account, which opens up several demos and other resources not available unless you are registered and signed in.
  
 There is a downloadable set of samples including an airplane flying overhead audio sample in there, and several video examples to demo Atmos, and it is clearly a binaural recording, but with Dolby Atmos for Headphones turned on the "height" information seems more pronounced, and it does seem to be going overhead. They say that the files are backwards-compatible to non-dolby listening environments because Atmos embeds special information into the stream -- but is not clear from my reading yet what that information is comprised of.
  
 They also say that Atmos treats sound not as speaker positions but as "sound objects", which is exactly what the SN3D Ambisonics treatment does in YouTube and Facebook program material encoded in SN3D (their respective players handle the decoding automatically). SN3D and Atmos as well, presumably, is a "speaker position to HRTF" treatment, which does imply - if Atmos works the same way - that material already recorded in HRTF or binaural is being processed again, as pointed out by Jacobh, which may produce an interesting effect, but would be a distortion of that audio (even if that distortion sounds pleasing).
  
 BTW - the Edge browser is fully Dolby Digital Plus (e-ac-3) compatible now. No other browser is. Not sure how this works with the Atmos for Headphones.
  
 Still researching!
  
 Terry


----------



## JPB1

What video playback program are you guys using to maintain the metadata in the audio stream for headphone rendering? Especially for blu-ray playback or its corresponding mkv playback.


----------



## xeizo

I tried it, it distorts with complex music, very high im-distortion. I uninstalled it and will never look back.


----------



## HJW702

I just updated to Creators Update and the Atmos extension/app/whatever is free of charge.   Did I miss something?


----------



## Malfunkt

Dolby Atmos for Headphones is a free trial for 30-days, atmos for Speakers is free but would require specially formatted content. 

You can view some dedicated Atmos content here but may need a special player such as MPC-HC.

On 5.1 and 7.1 content I find it does a very good job. It's actually pretty enjoyable for music as well and did not get any distortion using a ODAC and HD700. I do think they should give you a bit of control over it, or at least give you some feedback inner app to show you if it is up-mixing or accepting a 5.1 track. 

For games, it can help with some, but I find this more of a mixed bag. It sounds great with Battlefield 1, as it appear  Battlefield 1 has Atmos processing in it internally (in fact, even with the Atmos for Windows app, you can enable this in Battlefield 1 but for speakers only). So it seems to do a good job here. Other games such as Overwatch, well it has it built-in, so you wouldn't need it there. CS:Go, well it has its own built-in HRTF, and I think running this on top will just mess with it. 

With other games, that can output a 5.1 channel, it appears it will take this and create a rendition similar to movies. Still not as good as having a dedicated Atmos, or an HRTF engine that is built-in to CS:Go. For single player games, similar to something like Sennheiser GSX1000 it can bring a bit more atmosphere.

Really, I think ti works very well for 5.1 audio, Netflix, and even just softening up YouTube audio. Nice option, but would have been better to see this as a core implementation of either Windows and/or Mac OS. While yes, everyone's HRTF is unique, for the most part you can approximate it, unless one's head and torso are severely different, generally you should be able to create convincing surround effects. I feel DSP is a better way to go than trying multiple speaker setups like OSSIC, and unless OSSIC is going to do a physical model of your ears and body I think its a losing battle against a DSP software alogrithm.


----------



## x7007

what is the best way to capture the sound from a game using the Asus Strix Raid DLX sound card ?

With what program is the best to capture the multichannel speakers ? I want to record and hear the differences between the Asus Virtual Surround , Atmos , Sonic and post on youtube so we can compare.

For example if I want to capture using the Virtual Surround of the Asus Strix and if it's the same as capturing the windows 10 Atmos or Sonic ?

What program does it the best ?

Msi AfterBurner Video Recording - which should be easiest for me to use at the moment
Open Broadcaster Software
ShadowPlay
Action!
Bandicam
Xsplit
D3DGear
Dxtory
Fraps
Use Windows 10 Game Bar

Can you tell me if you hear surround here ? I tried to video capturing it with Msi AfterBurner with Atmos-Headphones 7.1 enabled.


----------



## Malfunkt

x7007 said:


> Can you tell me if you hear surround here ? I tried to video capturing it with Msi AfterBurner with Atmos-Headphones 7.1 enabled.




It's a bit hard to tell here. Not sure if Shadow Warrior is the best way to test this. Take a look at the links I posted above to getting an actual Atmos test track. It is easy to here the difference and then if you record your internal audio you should be able to hear if it was recorded. A 'ghetto' way to record the audio is to just capture the sound out of your headphone report to another recording device. Then import the wave back and blend it with your video. On Mac OS X I use a program called Soundflower to route internal audio to recording software, I'm sure there is a Windows equivalent. 

Anyhow, it isn't quite clear if Dolby Atmos for headphone will work automatically with games when you switch them to 5.1/7.1 and headphone out. I know it works with Battlefield 1 (has a dedicated Atmos track). Would probably work with BF3 and BF4 (converting their surround sound channels to simulated surround).


----------



## x7007

Malfunkt said:


> It's a bit hard to tell here. Not sure if Shadow Warrior is the best way to test this. Take a look at the links I posted above to getting an actual Atmos test track. It is easy to here the difference and then if you record your internal audio you should be able to hear if it was recorded. A 'ghetto' way to record the audio is to just capture the sound out of your headphone report to another recording device. Then import the wave back and blend it with your video. On Mac OS X I use a program called Soundflower to route internal audio to recording software, I'm sure there is a Windows equivalent.
> 
> Anyhow, it isn't quite clear if Dolby Atmos for headphone will work automatically with games when you switch them to 5.1/7.1 and headphone out. I know it works with Battlefield 1 (has a dedicated Atmos track). Would probably work with BF3 and BF4 (converting their surround sound channels to simulated surround).



So GSX 1000 is still the best Virtual Surround ?  How well does the GSX 1000 work for Stereo only channels ? and how well for 7.1 ? is there a difference for this kind specific with the GSX ? so I'll know in comparison we already know that the Atmos doesn't upmix


----------



## Malfunkt

Not sure if the GSX1000 is the best. It is definitely more expensive. From what i heard on some test videos it worked well on stereo-channels but so did Atmos. Some GSX1000 videos on youtube didn't quite sound right, for a couple reasons, people putting too much reverb on the source signal, or applying it on top of two-channel sound that already has spatialization.

Some people who replied in Youtube comments said that it sounded much better in person and that some of these videos didn't do the GSX1000 justice. That said, its fairly $$$ for what really can be done with just software. :/

So it's nice that Sennheiser has this, but really for gaming I'm not sure if it will have longevity. I guess it depends if game developers will continue to put resources into 5.1/7.1, but perhaps they won't, as internal game engines such as the ones used by Battlefield 1, CS:Go, Overwatch (uses Atmos natively) pretty much allow for full spatialization. The GSX to me is actually best used on 5.1/7.1 digital media, and some two-channel content to give spatialization. It's a very nice DSP implementation, but aside from some live controls, not sure of its advantages over Atmos, aside from preference of one algorithm over another. And price... significant price difference, plus Atmos software won't take up any desktop space and can be routed to amp/DAC of choice.


----------



## username1

Can anyone tell me how to activate this Windows Sonic (not Atmos) thing? I have chosen it in Spatial settings, it reverts audio settings to 44.8kHz 2.0 stereo. Do you need to play real 5.1 source material to hear the difference? Do i have to keep "Headphones" setting under Creative settings or 5.1? Right now playing music or other stuff makes no "reverb" difference at all, while enabling Creative CMSS it adds this crappy reverb automatically to everything.

I'm using USB based X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro DAC.


----------



## RPGWiZaRD

You don't really need to do anything else, just select it in the spatial surround settings. This doesn't really impact music playback hugely at all like most other processing algorithms so it's not like you can immediatly tell if it's on or not based on music playback.


----------



## username1

Maybe i need to use Windows drivers for my card. Creative driver suite is known to cause problems, though.

Also some info from MS page:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/mt807491(v=vs.85).aspx



> On both Windows and Xbox, the number of available voices varies based on the format in use. Dolby Atmos formats support 32 total active objects (so if a 7.1.4 channel bed is in use, 20 additional dynamic sound objects can be active). *Windows Sonic for Headphones supports 128 total active objects*, with the Low Frequency Effects (LFE) channel not actually being counted as an object -- so when an 8.1.4.4 channel bed is in use, 112 dynamic sound objects can be active.


----------



## Clovis559

Malfunkt said:


> It's a bit hard to tell here. Not sure if Shadow Warrior is the best way to test this. Take a look at the links I posted above to getting an actual Atmos test track. It is easy to here the difference and then if you record your internal audio you should be able to hear if it was recorded. A 'ghetto' way to record the audio is to just capture the sound out of your headphone report to another recording device. Then import the wave back and blend it with your video. On Mac OS X I use a program called Soundflower to route internal audio to recording software, I'm sure there is a Windows equivalent.
> 
> Anyhow, it isn't quite clear if Dolby Atmos for headphone will work automatically with games when you switch them to 5.1/7.1 and headphone out. I know it works with Battlefield 1 (has a dedicated Atmos track). Would probably work with BF3 and BF4 (converting their surround sound channels to simulated surround).



Dolby Atmos for headphones doesn't work with Battlefield 1. Maybe for the 7.1 virtual, but you cannot enable Atmos in game. Same for BF4 and BF3. Tried them.


----------



## Malfunkt (May 10, 2017)

Clovis559 said:


> Dolby Atmos for headphones doesn't work with Battlefield 1. Maybe for the 7.1 virtual, but you cannot enable Atmos in game. Same for BF4 and BF3. Tried them.



To clarify. Atmos doesn't work 'natively' for headphones in Battlefield. It does work natively if you are outputting via HDMI to a home-theatre surround sound speaker setup.

In order for it to work with headphones, the Dolby Atmos for Headphones software is required on Windows. Enabled, it seems to 'just work' with BF1. It's nice, and I've been using it. Not sure if its that much better than the native headphone implementation, as I haven't tested extensively.

Edit: Clovis559 is right. At the moment it appears that it is only 7.1 virtualized. Nice, but the native headphone mode may be more accurate spatially.


----------



## Clovis559

Malfunkt said:


> To clarify. Atmos doesn't work 'natively' for headphones in Battlefield. It does work natively if you are outputting via HDMI to a home-theatre surround sound speaker setup.
> 
> In order for it to work with headphones, the Dolby Atmos for Headphones software is required on Windows. Enabled, it seems to 'just work' with BF1. It's nice, and I've been using it. Not sure if its that much better than the native headphone implementation, as I haven't tested extensively.



You didn't clarify. You partly restated what I said. The person I quoted was interested because Battlefield 1 supported Atmos. You are not getting Atmos with Dolby Atmos for Headphones. It does not work in Battlefield 1. You are only getting 7.1 virtual.


----------



## Malfunkt

Clovis559 said:


> You didn't clarify. You partly restated what I said. The person I quoted was interested because Battlefield 1 supported Atmos. You are not getting Atmos with Dolby Atmos for Headphones. It does not work in Battlefield 1. You are only getting 7.1 virtual.



Thanks Clovis559, I stand corrected. I made an assumption that as BF1 has Atmos that 'somehow' when using Dolby Atmos for Headphones it would recognize this audio track. But I believe you are correct, and that it is just using 7.1 virtualized. This is all that it shows selected, and sonically, it even sounds like 7.1 virtualized. So better off just using its native headphone mode which is excellent.

The game is outstanding for audio immersion.  Gameplay, well, is pretty fun, and I think will get better.


----------



## x7007

Malfunkt said:


> Thanks Clovis559, I stand corrected. I made an assumption that as BF1 has Atmos that 'somehow' when using Dolby Atmos for Headphones it would recognize this audio track. But I believe you are correct, and that it is just using 7.1 virtualized. This is all that it shows selected, and sonically, it even sounds like 7.1 virtualized. So better off just using its native headphone mode which is excellent.
> 
> The game is outstanding for audio immersion.  Gameplay, well, is pretty fun, and I think will get better.



So should I play this game with Stereo set in windows cause that's what Asus card gives me. then set Headphones in BF1 ?    that will give me 7.1 or just Stereo ?

If I want 7.1 which one should I choose  ?  Virtual Surround in the Sound Card drivers + Home Cinema in BF1 ? 

With Atmos we should use Headphones also ?

I mean what are our options when we want  Stereo only  or Stereo Virtual Surround , or 7.1 Headphones Virtual Surround  ?  or there is just Stereo Virtual Surround.  Hard to explain because I don't understand the game engine and we have so many ways to get virtual surround.


----------



## Clovis559

Tbh  When it comes to Headphone and Spatial, everyone has a preference, love & hate. If you ask enough people, you will end up in a circle. What I recommend, you might not like.

For short, I when I do use headphones, I plug them into my Yamaha receiver. I get Dolby TrueHD as my spatial sound, but this is done in my receiver. I don't have to swap settings in games or windows ever. I don't have to adjust the quality to and from 48khz and 192khz.
(In fact in Battlefield 1 I get an Atmos signal to the receiver, but Dolby TrueHD to my headphones, without having to change any settings in Battlefield 1)

But my go to is regularly a 5.1.2 Atmos speaker setup.

In the long run, since everyone is different, I recommend you trying your different possibilities. Any Virtual software that came with your soundcard/headphones, windows sonic, dolby atmos for headphones (But not any two of them at the same time). Test them on the exact same medium. 

I believe I downloaded some demos from here:
https://thedigitaltheater.com/index.php/dolby-trailers/

I would play "Leaf" and "Amaze". If you have windows 10, you won't need any special software. You can play this through the Movies and Tv app.

Some people will complain about the quality of certain spatial settings, and Amaze is perfect for this. It has a wide range of distinct, easy to listen to sounds, and positional audio. From the bugs flying around your head, to the bass of the thunder rumbling... you can really test everything you need. Leaf is great for positional because it's really just the leaf flying around you.

From there you can test the quality and positional of each sound easily by testing each one on those two videos. You should see if the different technologies sound the same to you, have better sound quality, or better positional audio for your ears.


----------



## x7007 (May 11, 2017)

Clovis559 said:


> Tbh  When it comes to Headphone and Spatial, everyone has a preference, love & hate. If you ask enough people, you will end up in a circle. What I recommend, you might not like.
> 
> For short, I when I do use headphones, I plug them into my Yamaha receiver. I get Dolby TrueHD as my spatial sound, but this is done in my receiver. I don't have to swap settings in games or windows ever. I don't have to adjust the quality to and from 48khz and 192khz.
> (In fact in Battlefield 1 I get an Atmos signal to the receiver, but Dolby TrueHD to my headphones, without having to change any settings in Battlefield 1)
> ...



What is your yamaha receiver model and what year ?

if I also talk about Movies , should I use the Atmos , I usually get movies that are HD-DTS or Atmos.  that would be better than other virtual surround right ?

Because there is Out of your Head,  I'm not sure what to use for movies.

The Out of Your head surround or Atmos, because the sound is very good with the OOYR but there are so many presents that I can't choose the best one I like . the sound changes so much and I can't decide which is the right one like in the movies theatre .

Also btw : Dolby Access windows 10 granted another 4 days Trial after the 30 days..  funny. they just update issues with the license thing and activation... every update is with that.


----------



## CluckerByte

Hi everyone,

As of 2 days ago I have adopted Dolby Atmos for Headphone and been playing around with it non-stop.
You see I currently have an ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card in my Windows 10 machine, and have ALWAYS used Dolby Headphone, specifically the DH-2 setting as I found it had a little more separation without sounding "reverby" to my ears compared to the boxed sound of DH-1.
I have been posting over in the Monolith M1060 thread, but someone suggested I bring my information and experience over here - good idea!

Compared to Dolby Headphone, this is certainly a step up and above to what I am used to.
I have heard Youtube representations of what other DSP's sound like (SBX, GSX, SBZ, DH, CMSS-3D), and this appears to be pretty competitive considering it's $15 vs Creative or Senn's leading hardware based solutions.

I have not bought the full version of this software yet, I am currently on trial and still have 27 days left.

I had some problems initially with some content sounding a bit "off" - this has now been identified as having too much reverb and some sounds being quieter than the mastering intended.
What was the cause? - Allow me to explain.

By default when you enable Dolby Atmos for Headphone and get it all set up, it up-mixes ALL content and it's channels to a 7.1 simulated experience.
I have found that for 5.1 and 7.1 content this works a treat, no complaints really at all.

With 2 channel content however, reverb is introduced and some of the details in the 2 channel mixes are lost or visualised in an extremely quiet way where the environment or situation can appear to sound off or hollow.
Solution? - Allow me to explain.

As with Dolby Headphone, which up-mixes all content up to a 5.1 mix and 7.1 down to a 5.1 mix, content sounds the same in experience regardless without issue, at-least in my experience.
With Dolby Atmos for Headphone, you need to UNCHECK the 7.1 virtualisation box when playing stereo (2 channel) content.

Please remember when you change Atmos settings in the Spatial Audio tab, you generally should have the content closed and not playing, and you should re-open it fresh as in my experience changes do not take effect until a program picks up the new settings fresh from the go, not on the fly.
Immediately you will notice 2 channel content has less reverb, especially noticeable on voices to myself, and the content feels a little "fuller". (Content specific obviously)

I have had SOME content which comes through well from 2.1 to 7.1, but all 2ch content appears to benefit better from just being played without the 7.1 virtualisation.
To my understanding, when you uncheck 7.1 virtualisation, it does a 5.1 up-mix instead, like Dolby Headphone.

Less channels to split the streams into = less room for error with sound level virtualisation and less reverb.

I originally didn't like Atmos for playing music or listening to quite a bit of things, but when you understand how to utilise it, it's fantastic.

One thing that needs to happen, is being able to change channels somehow as currently selecting Dolby Atmos for Headphone defaults your sound channels to 2 channel, which means games that auto select their game track based on the Windows mixer play in stereo, so you need to uncheck 7.1 to get the most out of them.
Hopefully Dolby fixes this somehow so we can select 5.1 and 7.1 so we can utilise full 7.1 virtualisation in games.
Obviously games that allow you manual control of in-game sound channels work fine.

Also remember Atmos won't benefit games with already DSP'd / Binaural audio tracks, I believe Battlefield and Witcher 3 have these built in with some sound option configurations.

Well, I think that's everything I wanted to share, I hope you guys can learn something from this and improve your experience, this is very beneficial to me because I wanted a dedicated high quality DAC / AMP combo but I needed a DSP for gaming / movies and music. (Love how it transforms the sound into a more full presentation)
On a side note, does anyone know if an Aune X1S will benefit my setup vs my current headphone jack from my Xonar Essence STX?

Thanks.


----------



## Clovis559

2016 Yamaha Rx-A760. I plan to upgrade to a Rx-2060/2070 for 5.1.4, and I will keep that until 7.1.6 becomes available without ridiculous $10,000 investment.

At the moment, with movies... With Dolby Atmos for headphones.... again you will not get Atmos sound. I tested this. In even in the windows Movies & Tv, you will not be able to select the Atmos track. So you will be stuck with Virtual 7.1. For me it selects, then auto deselects the track. Where when I use my receiver, the Atmos track is already auto selected (For reference, everything that I have tested with the Atmos for Headphones, no Atmos content actually works on it. I only get 7.1 virtual surround). Even though I have a receiver, I bought the headphones access because I love to fiddle with things. So with regards to movies, I still advise my advice above with the two demos and listening. 

I'm reluctant to recommend because my ears have been well adapted for surround sound. I'm not as immersed in headphones as I used to be. When I switched from headphones, surround sounded funky. Now that I'm adjusted, headphones sound funky. My best pair of headphones were bose q25, and there are a lot better headphones out there.

I kinda like to pop in to give my experience with Atmos/headphones/receivers. But when it comes to what your asking for more specifically, besides the two demos, there are a lot more experienced headphone users on these forums who will hopefully jump in this conversation.


----------



## CluckerByte

Clovis559 said:


> 2016 Yamaha Rx-A760. I plan to upgrade to a Rx-2060/2070 for 5.1.4, and I will keep that until 7.1.6 becomes available without ridiculous $10,000 investment.
> 
> At the moment, with movies... With Dolby Atmos for headphones.... again you will not get Atmos sound. I tested this. In even in the windows Movies & Tv, you will not be able to select the Atmos track. So you will be stuck with Virtual 7.1. For me it selects, then auto deselects the track. Where when I use my receiver, the Atmos track is already auto selected (For reference, everything that I have tested with the Atmos for Headphones, no Atmos content actually works on it. I only get 7.1 virtual surround). Even though I have a receiver, I bought the headphones access because I love to fiddle with things. So with regards to movies, I still advise my advice above with the two demos and listening.
> 
> ...


I've seen someone else (or perhaps yourself on another thread/forum) have this issue with ATMOS soundtracks, I wonder if they'll introduce a way to play them back, I heard from someone who contacted Dolby late last month that Dolby told them the implementation is still buggy and not final, they're working on it.

Makes me excited because it already sounds great, any improvement is just icing on the cake.

Anyone know how the virtualisation compares directly between GSX 7.1 and Atmos 7.1 in a game that's putting out 5.1 / 7.1?
I've heard the GSX is better but only slightly, not sure how exactly though, and the GSX falls behind the SBX in positional audio but the GSX excels over the SBX in putting you "in the environment"..

Need more comparisons, was going to drop money on the GSX before remembering to give Atmos a try.


----------



## x7007

CluckerByte said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> As of 2 days ago I have adopted Dolby Atmos for Headphone and been playing around with it non-stop.
> You see I currently have an ASUS Xonar Essence STX sound card in my Windows 10 machine, and have ALWAYS used Dolby Headphone, specifically the DH-2 setting as I found it had a little more separation without sounding "reverby" to my ears compared to the boxed sound of DH-1.
> ...




So if I have games/movies/music that are Stereo or 5.1 then I still use ATMOS but disable the 7.1 Virtual .     is that correct ?


----------



## Malfunkt (May 11, 2017)

x7007 said:


> So should I play this game with Stereo set in windows cause that's what Asus card gives me. then set Headphones in BF1 ?    that will give me 7.1 or just Stereo ?
> 
> If I want 7.1 which one should I choose  ?  Virtual Surround in the Sound Card drivers + Home Cinema in BF1 ?
> 
> ...



For BF1 I recommend this setting:

In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).

If you are going to use Atmos, make sure to enable it in in Spatialization settings. Set BF1 to high quality / full dynamic range audio and 5.1 output. It is possible that the Atmos Heaphone plugin is able to understand the settings without you having to adjust them. Not sure. Really Dolby and Windows needs to make a better case for the benefits and use of Atmos with respect to gaming.

Right now, I'd say Atmos for Headphones is best used as a 5.1/7.1/ virtualizer for watching movies. I'd say the same for Sennheiser's GSX1000.

It's a bit confusing for the consumer. And in some ways companies benefit from this, as they can then sell all manner of gear. But really, a game engine should be able to do a great job with creating simulated HRTF / binaural spatial auditory cues. Some have. CS:Go although not leading in sound design, has an HRTF engine that works quite well. I know Overwatch has Atmos built-in, playable over headphones, but not sure how good that implementation is.


----------



## x7007 (May 11, 2017)

Malfunkt said:


> For BF1 I recommend this setting:
> 
> In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).
> 
> ...



Thanks !

Thank god I didn't start playing it, cause I would enable Atmos or Asus Sonic Studio Virtual Surround , not both ofc ,  and use Home-Cinema .. this would mess up the experience 100% ...  now I could start playing it knowing the right settings.

I think the first option is the best as it has Headphones surround already.  instead going with Atmos and mixing it up with another settings.


----------



## CluckerByte

x7007 said:


> So if I have games/movies/music that are Stereo or 5.1 then I still use ATMOS but disable the 7.1 Virtual .     is that correct ?


Correct somewhat, 5.1 content to me sounds better with 7.1 enabled which appears to bring more detail and 3D effect.
Try out both and see what you like, 5.1 content without 7.1 virtual seems to also be much quieter.

I prefer 5.1 with 7.1 virtual.


----------



## SONICDK

i bought it the first day after my 24h trial, but i cant enable dolby atmos headphones since,
others with same problem, and is there a fix for it ?


----------



## n3cr1d

Hi guys, any idea if dolby atmos can support 24bit? My audioquest dragonfly usb dac cant support 16bit, only 24bits and i cant select spatial sound because this. Maybe a future update? Thanks!


----------



## x7007

Guys,  whoever have it installed and the trial is over, remove Dolby Access, Atmos for Headphones, and the Creative thing it installed, DTS and something.  
I had an issue with potplayer the opening of every movie was so slow, took 4-5 sec for the movie to open, on my friend computer and my laptop it was instant, almost same hardware , same windows.   without internet ( adapter disabled ) it worked instant !
Short story , I uninstalled all of them and potplayer now opens instant. 

so if you don't use it , uninstall it.


----------



## mashuto

Malfunkt said:


> For BF1 I recommend this setting:
> 
> In Windows make sure no spatialization settings are selected (so no Sonic or Atmos). Make sure BF1 settings are high-quality/full dynamic range and headphone/stereo. BF1's internal audio engine will sound essentially holographic with headphones, without need for any other gear. Now, some headphones create a better sense of immersion (I'm using a set of HD700s for gaming).
> 
> ...



I just jumped aboard here since I had been using DH from my old xonar sound card, but the computer crapped out so I took it as an opportunity to build a new one. As far as positional audio, without any kind of virtualization, bf1 does not give me the best of cues, right and left are fine, but forward and back, not so much.

Also, are your options different than mine? There is no high quality/full dynamic range option, what I have are two options in game. Surround/stereo and sound preset, which lets me choose between war tapes, hi-fi, headphones, etc. There is no way to choose 5.1 output directly, and it is my understanding that there is no way to choose dynamic range directly, though the preset is essentially dynamic range (though with preset names).

I was missing dolby headphone, so I tried out the spatialization settings in windows. Windows sonic sounds artificial and not very full. Dolby atmos for headphones on the other hand sounds pretty nice and seems to be to give me exactly what I am looking for. With 7.1 virtual surround, and my ingame settings set to surround and headphones, I feel like I am getting nice positional audio that doesnt sound crazy over processed.

I dont however know if its truly doing what I want or if its just some kind of placebo effect, but that seemed to be the ticket for me. And since I havent been able to find any concrete information about whether bf1 has any hrtf function built in, I am pretty sure with windows built in atmos for windows, thats what its doing. I am a little hesitant to purchase it only because some have reported they cant choose it anymore after they buy it, but it seems to work. Am I crazy? I keep reading that a lot of people dont like it, but it seems to work well for me.


----------



## Clovis559

mashuto said:


> I just jumped aboard here since I had been using DH from my old xonar sound card, but the computer crapped out so I took it as an opportunity to build a new one. As far as positional audio, without any kind of virtualization, bf1 does not give me the best of cues, right and left are fine, but forward and back, not so much.
> 
> Also, are your options different than mine? There is no high quality/full dynamic range option, what I have are two options in game. Surround/stereo and sound preset, which lets me choose between war tapes, hi-fi, headphones, etc. There is no way to choose 5.1 output directly, and it is my understanding that there is no way to choose dynamic range directly, though the preset is essentially dynamic range (though with preset names).
> 
> ...



Dolby Access is a lottery. I bought it, I don't have it installed. For some, perfect. For others, nightmare. For me: It came to me fidgeting with it everytime to get it to work, for low benifit since I have and prefer speakers. I've never really experienced any problems with speakers in BF1, if you want to make that jump.


----------



## mashuto

Clovis559 said:


> Dolby Access is a lottery. I bought it, I don't have it installed. For some, perfect. For others, nightmare. For me: It came to me fidgeting with it everytime to get it to work, for low benifit since I have and prefer speakers. I've never really experienced any problems with speakers in BF1, if you want to make that jump.



I see. Yea, so far the couple days I have used the trial, I havent had any issues. Now I am worried that when I go to buy it, I will lose it. As far as headphones vs speakers. I much prefer headphones as I find I can usually pinpoint things a lot better. My PC is hooked up to my TV and receiver, but for FPS games, thats less than ideal for me, there is definitely a delay either from the receiver or the tv itself, and playing an fps game from the couch (and potentially with a controller) is just definitely not for me. DH worked well for me in the past, and DA for headphones seems to do the trick so far. Heres to hoping that I dont have any issues when I go to buy it. Plus I am usually talking to a buddy through discord, so headphones with a modmic is again better for me than speakers.

I tried razer surround briefly, but it just made everything sound like a poorly compressed mp3. Lots of artifacts. Windows sonic had a bit of that too, but just make everything sound very tinny. Atmos just seems to be the ticket for me, though I am still not 100% sure how well the positional cues are compared to the old DH implementation I used with my xonar. And my onboard virtual surround doesnt seem to work at all since I am using optical out to a schitt stack.


----------



## x7007 (Jun 4, 2017)

Anyone knows how to fix the issue after I uninstalled it, I can install it, it gives me 30 day trial after I used them all, but it doesn't actually activate it. it says error .  any fix ?  and the issue is that it doesn't give me an option to actually buy it, so I can use it .    just an 30 trial option which doesn't work.


----------



## genclaymore (Jun 4, 2017)

I got around it by logging out of the email address that had the issue, then log in another one and used that one to get the app to download the headphone part of the app. After it started working, I switched back and now had the option to buy it on original email i was logged into.

But Right now the buy button is disable for the temp being til they fix their issue with the store not letting people buying it, but they have a lot more they should be doing besides that.


----------



## DanPerezSax

I had an issue with DSP artifacts when I first installed it.  If you've ever pushed a DAW past your CPU's processing limits, you know the sound I'm talking about.  Some fiddling with bitrates, activating/deactivating, etc. solved it.  Basically the digital version of giving it a whack to make it work.  Ever since then, I've set my PC's output default to its highest native bitrate and sampling rate and am having no problems with Dolby Atmos for headphones.  

In fact, I'm astounded at how well it works, especially with over-ears.  I haven't tried it with the big cans on xbox one yet, but plugging my IEMs directly into the controller sounded pretty great for Titanfall 2.  From my PC, though, watching Netflix in 5.1 is a whole new experience with spatial effects on.  It gives a more immersive soundstage than my actual 5.1 setup, probably because my room is far from optimally set up and the speakers are cheap vs my headphones.  With over-ears, I can hear sounds moving clearly from front to back.  With in-ears, it's more like... from my position to back, or left/right of me to back.  They don't give the sense of space that over-ears do, but that's kind of the nature of in-ears.  In practice, visual cues are enough for your mind to fill in the blanks, so it is still an improvement on normal stereo.

This is my first experience with virtualized surround for headphones that didn't make me roll my eyes, and I gotta say I'm really enjoying it.

So far, I've been deactivating the software when I'm not running surround sound, since I don't want it to do anything to stereo tracks.  Any idea if it does this automatically?


----------



## x7007 (Jun 14, 2017)

genclaymore said:


> I got around it by logging out of the email address that had the issue, then log in another one and used that one to get the app to download the headphone part of the app. After it started working, I switched back and now had the option to buy it on original email i was logged into.
> 
> But Right now the buy button is disable for the temp being til they fix their issue with the store not letting people buying it, but they have a lot more they should be doing besides that.


I logged on to other email, created a new hotmail.
but it still says I own this app .
The main issue is that I removed the  when you first install it , it request to download some more programs, what are they ?  because I don't know.  maybe it only request one time per computer ?  if you uninstall and reinstall it , does it ask to install the new add-on again ?

Although there is buy option now, but I don't know what add-on it install.  and if I'm missing them or something.


----------



## genclaymore

I did it in the MS store app at the top right, next to search bar you should see your account icon, clicking that will let you log out of the MS app, so you can log into another account. Any other email address will work. You just doing this so it can Download the needed files for the Atmos heaphone part of the program. Which will then allow you to buy it on your primary email after switching back. Some reason it glitches, they need to fix that.


----------



## x7007

genclaymore said:


> I did it in the MS store app at the top right, next to search bar you should see your account icon, clicking that will let you log out of the MS app, so you can log into another account. Any other email address will work. You just doing this so it can Download the needed files for the Atmos heaphone part of the program. Which will then allow you to buy it on your primary email after switching back. Some reason it glitches, they need to fix that.



I edited it, can you check the Apps and Features if you have anything Creative add-on ?


----------



## RitzyBusiness (Jun 14, 2017)

Dolby Atmos headphone is useless, a few many games won't output a 5.1/7.1 signal because they choose their mix based on how many speakers they detect is installed.  Nier automata is one such game, the settings stay locked to stereo and with FAR there is only stereo sound being used.

It might work properly if you can manually set the mix which is where people are probably getting best luck from but there is no way to actually verify it is working properly due to lack of diagnostic tools.  (like on some sound cards, like the  Auzentech Prelude you can see which 'speakers' are being used over spdif which was handy when using the Astro Mixamp)

I like Dolby HP, and I enjoyed the atmos I tried in the beta of Overwatch.  It hit my ears just right, but this implementation leaves alot to be desired.  Until then i'll stick with SBX over spdif


----------



## x7007 (Jun 15, 2017)

RitzyBusiness said:


> Dolby Atmos headphone is useless, a few many games won't output a 5.1/7.1 signal because they choose their mix based on how many speakers they detect is installed.  Nier automata is one such game, the settings stay locked to stereo and with FAR there is only stereo sound being used.
> 
> It might work properly if you can manually set the mix which is where people are probably getting best luck from but there is no way to actually verify it is working properly due to lack of diagnostic tools.  (like on some sound cards, like the  Auzentech Prelude you can see which 'speakers' are being used over spdif which was handy when using the Astro Mixamp)
> 
> I like Dolby HP, and I enjoyed the atmos I tried in the beta of Overwatch.  It hit my ears just right, but this implementation leaves alot to be desired.  Until then i'll stick with SBX over spdif



Ye I have no reason to use Atmos when I have 7.1 from Asus and GSX 1000 .  But I just want to make sure I didn't screw something , I didn't remove creative drivers before installing asus, so I remove them later.   I don't know what the Atmos install when you install it the first time. anyone have an idea ? after you install it the first time it doesn't ask you to install add-on after ? if so I'm ok.  because even uninstalling Atmos I still can select it from the Spatial Speaker options .  Do you have Atmos to select even after you uninstalled it ?!  I uninstalled the Atmos cause it caused Delay when I opened movies with potplayer,  I posted in this very same thread about this issue telling to uninstall it after the trial is over.


----------



## RitzyBusiness

x7007 said:


> Ye I have no reason to use Atmos when I have 7.1 from Asus and GSX 1000 .  But I just want to make sure I didn't screw something , I didn't remove creative drivers before installing asus, so I remove them later.   I don't know what the Atmos install when you install it the first time. anyone have an idea ? after you install it the first time it doesn't ask you to install add-on after ? if so I'm ok.  because even uninstalling Atmos I still can select it from the Spatial Speaker options .  Do you have Atmos to select even after you uninstalled it ?!  I uninstalled the Atmos cause it caused Delay when I opened movies with potplayer,  I posted in this very same thread about this issue telling to uninstall it after the trial is over.



Ya, Windows Sonic and Atmos are permanant fixtures in spatial audio.  Just Dolby Atmos Headphone won't work unless you purchase the UWP app.

You screwed nothing up~


----------



## x7007

What do we do if there are movies with Audio Codec as following :

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description    
-----                           --------        -------         -----------    
Dolby Atmos/TrueHD Audio        English         4377 kbps       7.1-Atmos / 48 kHz / 4377 kbps / 24-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1-EX / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)

and Atmos when is chosen only limited to 16 bit.   Also the GSX is limited .


----------



## Speedster911

There's an issue with the Dolby Access app on Xbox One - it allows you to use the DA w/headphones setting only once. If you shutdown or restart your console, the app defaults to Windows Sonic and will not allow you to select DA. 

For now, I've found a workaround - uninstall, redownload and install the app EVERY time I power up my console. Plus, there's a static-like noise that I intermittently get in gaming sessions. 

Could anybody please replicate this? I've left Dolby multiple messages via their Support page and in-app feedback feature. I've also contacted MS to let them know of the issue. But there's no telling when this is getting fixed. All games, apps and system functions on my console are running normally.


----------



## Speedster911

No feedback at all? Just great... !


----------



## AxelCloris

There's a good chance most of those who have posted in this thread don't have an Xbox One, as the thread is about Dolby Atmos on PC. It may take time for someone to be able to try and replicate what you're experiencing.


----------



## Speedster911

AxelCloris said:


> There's a good chance most of those who have posted in this thread don't have an Xbox One, as the thread is about Dolby Atmos on PC. It may take time for someone to be able to try and replicate what you're experiencing.



I see, well, thanks for the response. I've a feeling it could be an error with Microsoft's OS for the Xbox One. Sometimes, system updates can introduce strange issues. Here's hoping someone can join in and that MS takes notice.


----------



## rudyae86

So I am still confused as to if the Dolby Atmos for Headphones does indeed work with games like Battlefield 1? I tried DA when it was first released with the creators update and it didn't sound like it worked. There were sound cues missing and everything sounded worse than stereo audio. I use my Asus Xonar DG with DH and that works way better.

So is DA for Headphones just junk? even though its at a "hardware" level?


----------



## genclaymore

its  the way ms did it, if they allowed you to set the number of speakers, it be an different story it doesn't. Sadly i doubt they will ever give the option to do it. I ended up using wave nx that was mentioned that some mention in another thread. which unlike dolby atmos in win10, it actually works.


----------



## mashuto

rudyae86 said:


> So I am still confused as to if the Dolby Atmos for Headphones does indeed work with games like Battlefield 1? I tried DA when it was first released with the creators update and it didn't sound like it worked. There were sound cues missing and everything sounded worse than stereo audio. I use my Asus Xonar DG with DH and that works way better.
> 
> So is DA for Headphones just junk? even though its at a "hardware" level?



Seems to work just fine for me with BF1, I have it enabled along with 7.1 virtual surround checkbox (which is what I assume bf1 uses to determine surround sound placement). I get good spatial cues with it similar to how I used to get when I was using Dolby Headphone through my old xonar sound card. I know there is no direct setting in bf1 to choose the number of speakers, but again seems to work fine for me.


----------



## rudyae86

mashuto said:


> Seems to work just fine for me with BF1, I have it enabled along with 7.1 virtual surround checkbox (which is what I assume bf1 uses to determine surround sound placement). I get good spatial cues with it similar to how I used to get when I was using Dolby Headphone through my old xonar sound card. I know there is no direct setting in bf1 to choose the number of speakers, but again seems to work fine for me.



Well in BF1, you have the option to set it up as Home Cinema/Surround. That is how I have it set when I use my Asus Xonar DG and enable Dolby Headphone. That is how you get the right postional cues. When I use Dolby Atmos, windows still recognizes only 2 channels (stereo) so therefore, even if you you have Home Cinema/Surround set up in BF1, it will only output to the 2 channels Windows sees and wont work as intended.


----------



## mashuto

rudyae86 said:


> Well in BF1, you have the option to set it up as Home Cinema/Surround. That is how I have it set when I use my Asus Xonar DG and enable Dolby Headphone. That is how you get the right postional cues. When I use Dolby Atmos, windows still recognizes only 2 channels (stereo) so therefore, even if you you have Home Cinema/Surround set up in BF1, it will only output to the 2 channels Windows sees and wont work as intended.



Yea and thats how I have it set up, I seem to get good positional cues, but maybe its partially just placebo and partially just experience telling me where i think the sounds should be. I know its still set to 2 speakers in windows, but the turn on 7.1 virtual surround checkbox doesnt emulate 7.1 speakers? The output is always 2 channels anyways, so are you sure its not processing it as surround, doing its atmos hrtf and mixing it down to 2 speakers? I realize there is no way to tell directly in battlefield, but again, it sounds like I am getting pretty good spatial cues, front and back.

And if it isnt working, do you have any suggestions for what might work better? I tried windows sonic, but thats obviously using the same system (and didnt like the sound). I tried razer surround, but also didnt like the sound (and felt atmos gave me better positional cues).


----------



## Mr Trev

It's my understanding that Atmos (or Sonic) need to be fed a 5.1 (or more) signal to do any processing. That's great if you have a surround capable audio card, but for folks with a laptop like myself… we're screwed.
I've been searching if there's any way to trick Windows or other software into thinking I have more than 2 speakers but so far no joy. My old MSi used to have a full 5.1 output, but my new(ish) Acer will only select stereo output. Barring this, the only option is to select surround in the game/app options - which is moot, since it looks like most games auto detect the output based on what Windows tells it. I thought I read that MS was trying to improve the detection methods, but I can be certain on that one.


----------



## rudyae86 (Jul 16, 2017)

mashuto said:


> Yea and thats how I have it set up, I seem to get good positional cues, but maybe its partially just placebo and partially just experience telling me where i think the sounds should be. I know its still set to 2 speakers in windows, but the turn on 7.1 virtual surround checkbox doesnt emulate 7.1 speakers? The output is always 2 channels anyways, so are you sure its not processing it as surround, doing its atmos hrtf and mixing it down to 2 speakers? I realize there is no way to tell directly in battlefield, but again, it sounds like I am getting pretty good spatial cues, front and back.
> 
> And if it isnt working, do you have any suggestions for what might work better? I tried windows sonic, but thats obviously using the same system (and didnt like the sound). I tried razer surround, but also didnt like the sound (and felt atmos gave me better positional cues).



It's probably placebo for you...like you said, you already have an idea of where those positional cues are coming from. So far, all Atmos and Sonic is doing is upmixing a stereo signal and making it seems like its coming from a 7.1 speaker set up. In no way is Atmos and Sonic taking a 5.1 or 7.1 signal and downmixing it to 2 channel audio so you can hear the true emulated effect of a 7.1.

I have set it up in many ways and used files that show (and for you to listen) where sound is coming from what speaker. So far the obvious one, the sub, isn't outputting any sound or signal when using Atmos or Sonic, therefore I know that the whole Atmos and Sonic isn't really working like DH, SBX, Sennhieser's Surround or Razer Surround (razer surround sucks tbh).

As of now and other I have talked to, Atmos and Sonic are still broken and or, its just an expanding of soundstage for Stereo audio only.

EDIT:


This video right here. I use this test to see if all channels are working properly and the cues are coming from those speakers. Of course this youtube video is useless so I would suggest you google to find the .mkv file and use VLC to really hear the 7.1 test when using any type of surround sound emulation (DH, SBX, Sennheisers or Razer) in this case "Dolby Atmos for Headphones" and "Windows Sonic for Headphones".

Also, I just remembered something. My Gigabyte motherboard, before I actually got my Asus Xonar DG, I was using its onboard audio and using a custom made gigabyte realtek UI where it would let me enable a 7.1 virtual surround option and all it did was add reverb to the audio and was not any real 7.1 surround sound emulation. Reverb is usually used to give more depth or soundstage. In this case, I am led to believe Atmos and Sonic do the same thing....for now.

EDIT 2: You can also use this link right here for Atmos type files that allow you to test AVR that support Atmos

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/test-tones.html

EDIT 3: Found this on another forum

https://hardforum.com/threads/windo...-1-virtualization-in-creators-update.1930706/

Seems like unless the API knows what the source is (Stereo, 5.1, 7.1, etc) it will send stereo only by default.

To my understanding....Yes, Dolby Atmos for Headphones and Windows Sonic is broken...


----------



## mashuto (Jul 16, 2017)

Mr Trev said:


> It's my understanding that Atmos (or Sonic) need to be fed a 5.1 (or more) signal to do any processing. That's great if you have a surround capable audio card, but for folks with a laptop like myself… we're screwed.
> I've been searching if there's any way to trick Windows or other software into thinking I have more than 2 speakers but so far no joy. My old MSi used to have a full 5.1 output, but my new(ish) Acer will only select stereo output. Barring this, the only option is to select surround in the game/app options - which is moot, since it looks like most games auto detect the output based on what Windows tells it. I thought I read that MS was trying to improve the detection methods, but I can be certain on that one.



Gotcha and yea that makes sense, but my question is whether ticking that 7.1 checkbox essentially tricks the system into thinking that it has 7.1 channels (similarly to how DH worked with the asus xonar) and on the same token then, in BF1 when you set it to surround vs stereo, what exactly is it doing then?



rudyae86 said:


> To my understanding....Yes, Dolby Atmos for Headphones and Windows Sonic is broken...



Fair enough, and it seems as though are right, that it may indeed be simply widening the soundstage and I pick up on the cues simply because I play the game enough and have an instinct for where things are (ie if I dont see someone in front of me and i hear footsteps in both ears, must be behind me.

So, what options are available? OOYH? Waves nx (that I just heard about in this thread a few posts back). Anything else?


----------



## Chris S

There's no placebo, it provides excellent positioning and soundstage.

It's probably an HRTF solution of some sort. I have no idea how they implement it for a stereo feed, outside of games that provide positional information.

It's good but. They stopped caring about sound for a few years there. Now they are doing some very advanced things. Maybe one day they will implement sound positioning in the veritcal plane as well...


----------



## mashuto

Chris S said:


> There's no placebo, it provides excellent positioning and soundstage.
> 
> It's probably an HRTF solution of some sort. I have no idea how they implement it for a stereo feed, outside of games that provide positional information.
> 
> It's good but. They stopped caring about sound for a few years there. Now they are doing some very advanced things. Maybe one day they will implement sound positioning in the veritcal plane as well...



The discussion wasn't about whether it works or not, but whether it works in relation to games like BF1, where there is no option in game to select the number of speakers, only stereo or surround. Some were saying its tied into the number of speakers chosen in windows, which would be 2... unless the 7.1 virtual surround allows games to see the system as having 7.1 speakers. Whether it does, I am not sure. And at least in BF1, I am not sure if I am getting true 360 degree positional cues, or just a simulated wider soundstage and pick up the cues just from my experience with the game.


----------



## Chris S

mashuto said:


> The discussion wasn't about whether it works or not, but whether it works in relation to games like BF1, where there is no option in game to select the number of speakers, only stereo or surround. Some were saying its tied into the number of speakers chosen in windows, which would be 2... unless the 7.1 virtual surround allows games to see the system as having 7.1 speakers. Whether it does, I am not sure. And at least in BF1, I am not sure if I am getting true 360 degree positional cues, or just a simulated wider soundstage and pick up the cues just from my experience with the game.



Oh, ok.

I am pretty sure the '7,1 virtual surround' isn't parsing a 7.1 source and is just a bit of a fancy name for processing the signal. You can setup HRTF on system shock, thief, doom etc, and it sounds similar to that.

I don't know much about it, but I guess once the stereo signal is transformed to the HRTF solution, nothing else will need to be done as the positioning is already provided by the game engine. HRTF just makes it sound better and positioned far more accurately, as it transforms it to what we hear, depending on how close our ear structures are to the chosen solution.

I thought BF1 already had hrtf? In which case there'd be no point using it twice.


----------



## Chris S

I think this tech presentation will have the answer (Introducing Spatial Audio Capabilities for Xbox and Windows). I haven't watched it.

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/GDC/GDC-2017/GDC2017-002


----------



## Knightfury

For those with something that can do SBX - is the Dolby atmos worth messing with or just stick with the default creative setup? I find creative software (as always) a complete mess to get it doing stuff how I want so if atmos "just works" and can somehow be set up to make better use of my hardware that'd be swell. 
I'm generally more into clinical, directional sound whoring over everything else.


----------



## Chris S

The SBX I have is some sort of equaliser. It's some rubbish that Creative bundle.e

It's all just turn on turn off, you may as well try it and see. The spatialisation necessarily transforms the sound wave a fait bit, I don't think they are provided for 'audiophiles'. I think they are more for positional audio.

A stereo headphone feed can feel rather average, so you can just use a normal 'headphone' setting which doesn't isolate one track eg the sax player to one ear. Whatever you call that.


----------



## xivlia

Dolbyy atmos in headphones doesnt make sense to me... i know that overwatch has that setting built in the game. i use a Hd800 and cant hear a difference.


----------



## Glasofruix

That's because you have to set your headphones to stereo. Anyways, anyone knows if there's a fix for atmos/sonic in the works? Because it sure as hell does not work with 90% of games, given the fact that they don't see this as a surround device and output stereo only? I tried to complain via official means, but people do not understand how virtual surround works (one guy kept telling me to contact my "original equipement vendor" because it was clearly my computer's fault...).


----------



## rudyae86

genclaymore said:


> its  the way ms did it, if they allowed you to set the number of speakers, it be an different story it doesn't. Sadly i doubt they will ever give the option to do it. I ended up using wave nx that was mentioned that some mention in another thread. which unlike dolby atmos in win10, it actually works.


How do you like Waves NX? I tried it and it's actually pretty good! Reminds me a bit of Sennheiser's Surround Sound and a bit of DH.....I wonder if more people are trying it out. And for 10 bucks it's pretty good deal compared to Dolby Atmos for Headphones.


----------



## genclaymore

rudyae86 said:


> How do you like Waves NX? I tried it and it's actually pretty good! Reminds me a bit of Sennheiser's Surround Sound and a bit of DH.....I wonder if more people are trying it out. And for 10 bucks it's pretty good deal compared to Dolby Atmos for Headphones.


When I tried it, it worked very well, better then what I thought it would do. I haven't used it in an while as I haven't gotten around to put it on again after doing an clean install of windows. I know enjoyed it very much when I was using it.


----------



## rudyae86

genclaymore said:


> When I tried it, it worked very well, better then what I thought it would do. I haven't used it in an while as I haven't gotten around to put it on again after doing an clean install of windows. I know enjoyed it very much when I was using it.



I was actually impressed the first time I heard it. In addition to setting up a custom fit for your ears seems to make things a bit better. Well it's mostly measuring your head lol. I just need to figure out how much resources does it take up, like CPU wise...?


----------



## genclaymore (Aug 25, 2017)

I didn't really check how much resources it used, when I was using it due to having an I7 3930k. Since nothing bad was happening during the time of using it.


----------



## rudyae86

genclaymore said:


> I didn't really check how much resources it used, when I was using it due to having an I7 3930k. Since nothing bad was happening during the time of using it.



I have an i7 4790k and didn't notice anything bad but I'm sure I might have lost 2 unnoticeable frames


----------



## TheManko

I hadn't heard of Waves NX, so I tried it out and recorded a couple videos featuring various games and such. Here's one, and the other. 

I haven't heard Sennheiser's virtual headphone tech, but it'd have to be quite something to beat Waves NX. This is excellent. Far superior to Dolby Atmos Headphone, Windows Sonic, the old Dolby Headphone, Razer Surround, and so on. This is the first headphone surround tech I've heard where the sound stage of stereo music isn't severely compromised. Like the other technologies, this imparts its own "sound" on the material. But it's so tastefully done it's for all intents and purposes transparent. I highly recommend people give it a shot.

I'm not sure how well my clips will translate to your headphones or head size. In the Waves NX software you tell it your head size and distance between your ears. These were recorded with my settings, so it might sound worse for you. Also, the headphone you use will matter. The spacial queues were far more obvious on both the HD 800 and Apple Airpods than with my Sony Z7. Clearly it's important to have a nice open top end for this to work as intended. I'm guessing any open headphones should do the job.


----------



## r9800pro

TheManko said:


> I hadn't heard of Waves NX, so I tried it out and recorded a couple videos featuring various games and such. Here's one, and the other.
> 
> I haven't heard Sennheiser's virtual headphone tech, but it'd have to be quite something to beat Waves NX. This is excellent. Far superior to Dolby Atmos Headphone, Windows Sonic, the old Dolby Headphone, Razer Surround, and so on. This is the first headphone surround tech I've heard where the sound stage of stereo music isn't severely compromised. Like the other technologies, this imparts its own "sound" on the material. But it's so tastefully done it's for all intents and purposes transparent. I highly recommend people give it a shot.
> 
> I'm not sure how well my clips will translate to your headphones or head size. In the Waves NX software you tell it your head size and distance between your ears. These were recorded with my settings, so it might sound worse for you. Also, the headphone you use will matter. The spacial queues were far more obvious on both the HD 800 and Apple Airpods than with my Sony Z7. Clearly it's important to have a nice open top end for this to work as intended. I'm guessing any open headphones should do the job.



Went ahead to try Waves NX with their 30 days trial and it doesn't work for me at all
When I enable it, it just gives me high volume NOISE 

I think the software is broken because I know how to set things up properly on PC. 

Also didn't find a way to contact them about this issue.


----------



## TheManko

That's unfortunate because I've had no such issues. All I had to do was start the program, select output device, and then it's worked reliably. Maybe there are incompatibility issues with certain output devices, or maybe it isn't compatible with all sample rates in Windows. I tend to use 24bit 44khz. Don't know if that will help.


----------



## r9800pro

I have no idea really what the issue is. I have uninstalled and reinstalled many times already and it failed. It worked one time only for no reason and I can't replicate it again.

I have a Sound Blaster Z on Win 10 and the plugin doesn't even show sample rates at all.


----------



## TheManko

I don't have sample rate settings for the Nx Headphones device either. Looks the same for me as those pics. I was referring to the output device, which in your case would be Speakers via Sound Blaster Z. I don't have a Sound Blaster card myself. I've tried it over HDMI to my TV and USB to my dac, which use fairly generic drivers.


----------



## r9800pro

Good to know the settings look the same. The output device for me is indeed Speakers and the only other option is SPDIF-Out and I don't use it.


----------



## Hal Rockwell (Oct 9, 2017)

When I use Dolby Atmos or Windows Sonic for headphones while playing Blu Ray rips of the Dolby Atmos demo CDs, I get a slight crackling sound in both the left and right channels. I tried both Aventree Leaf Bluetooth transmitter with Ausdom M05 wireless headset and Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 1st Gen with a bunch of wired over ear headphones. I tested it on a i7 6700K machine with 32GB of RAM. Is it possible that my HDD is the culprit, since it's an older SATAI WD drive?

Edit: Solved.

I use Pot Player for movies and the Normalizer was enabled in the settings menu. It boosted the audio way above normal and was over-driving pretty much everything.

I guess I was just looking for a reason to replace my eight year old HDD with a new and fast one. So I went with HGST Ultrastar, which is lightning fast.

P.S.
The Dolby Atmos for Headphones Windows 10 plugin does sound amazing to my ears so decided to go for it and purchase.


----------



## Jodiuh

Anyone able to get Atmos for headphones working on Xbox one s while watching Blu-ray’s?

I still get true hd. I don’t need the receiver to decode Atmos for headphones, right?


----------



## TheManko (Oct 16, 2017)

I don't have an Xbox One, but I would assume that the Xbox would send the Dolby Atmos Headphone stream to your receiver as PCM stereo or something. I think Dolby Atmos Headphone should even work via the headphone jack on the gamepad. I've had problems getting Dolby Atmos Headphone working in Windows 10 recently, it just doesn't work anymore for me. But because the Xbox is a platform where Microsoft has full control over the hardware and software, it should be more reliable. Does Dolby Atmos Headphone work in all games? Is it a system level switch you activate in the console sound settings? If so, then it should certainly work even with True HD bluray discs. But like I said, I haven't tried it myself, so can't say with complete certainty. But that's how I'd expect it to work if sane people designed it.

EDIT: I read up about this on other forums, and it seems like Microsoft broke the bluray player app a few months ago, making it incompatible with Dolby Atmos Headphone. They're apparently aware of this, and it's something they were going to fix. But as of early September, they hadn't fixed it yet, so it's possible it might still not be fixed. So it's supposed to just work across all apps and games, but the bluray app is the exception for now. Unless they've fixed it.


----------



## Jodiuh

TheManko said:


> EDIT: I read up about this on other forums, and it seems like Microsoft broke the bluray player app a few months ago, making it incompatible with Dolby Atmos Headphone. They're apparently aware of this, and it's something they were going to fix. But as of early September, they hadn't fixed it yet, so it's possible it might still not be fixed. So it's supposed to just work across all apps and games, but the bluray app is the exception for now. Unless they've fixed it.


Unsurprised...the GUI on the Xbox One S since its release has been garbage and I routinely have issues changing the audio around. I sometimes will need to do a full shutdown and power up to go from Windows Sonic to 5.1 uncompressed. Of course theres the option to send audio directly to receiver for bluray...so I'm changing this at least once a day and it drives me nuts.


----------



## Erik Garci (Oct 18, 2017)

Jodiuh said:


> Anyone able to get Atmos for headphones working on Xbox one s while watching Blu-ray’s?


DAfH works for Blu-ray on my Xbox One, although mine is non-S. I hear the audio fine at least.


Jodiuh said:


> I still get true hd.


"TrueHD" appears on the playback info bar, but "Atmos" never appears. I suspect that the Xbox is decoding the TrueHD stream but ignoring the Atmos substream, which is a shortcoming if true.


Jodiuh said:


> I don’t need the receiver to decode Atmos for headphones, right?


DAfH produces a 2-channel analog output which is intended to be fed directly to headphones. A receiver is unnecessary because the Xbox has already done the decoding.


----------



## Jodiuh

Erik Garci said:


> DAfH works for Blu-ray on my Xbox One, although mine is non-S. I hear the audio fine at least.
> 
> "TrueHD" appears on the playback info bar, but "Atmos" never appears. I suspect that the Xbox is decoding the TrueHD stream but ignoring the Atmos substream, which is a shortcoming if true.
> 
> DAfH produces a 2-channel analog output which is intended to be fed directly to headphones. A receiver is unnecessary because the Xbox has already done the decoding.


Atmos headphone works for Bluray discs on your vanilla Xbox One, but TrueHD is showing in the info bar? That doesn't seem like "working as intended" to me.

Can someone with Atmos receiver setup confirm whether or not info bar shows Atmos?

Thanks for the receiver unnecessary confirmation w/ regard to Atmos headphone.


----------



## Erik Garci

Jodiuh said:


> Can someone with Atmos receiver setup confirm whether or not info bar shows Atmos?


Unfortunately I don't have an Atmos receiver. The info bar might still show TrueHD because the Xbox is sending a TrueHD stream to the receiver. The TrueHD stream contains an Atmos substream.


----------



## otymm

AxelCloris said:


> I haven't tried out the Windows Creator update yet, but if the integrated Atmos is the same as the Dolby Atmos that comes with Overwatch on PC, I'll definitely spend $15 for it. I use an Asus card that outputs Dolby Headphone over optical to my Mojo for gaming, and I really enjoy DH for most games. That said, I cannot use anything but the included Atmos for Overwatch anymore because the height cues are a must with that game. There are several character that have vertical movement and elevation is a key aspect for positional accuracy. If I can bring the same elevation cues that I get in Overwatch to other games, then $15 is cheap investment.
> 
> I may install this update on my home machine later and play around with the Atmos option. If I can get it processing through my Mojo via USB then I'll be ecstatic.



I was wondering if you ever did get Dolby Atmos headphone working with your mojo?


----------



## golfinggino

I tried the dolby atmos headphones on my acer spin 5 today my expensive hifiman and audeze wouldn't work - I hit the troubleshoot button and connected by Bluetooth and my cheapest headphones sony x1000 worked lol.   It really does sound really good but I don't game or watch movies on my laptop so not sure if I will buy it or not.   I tried it on my surface book and it seemed like it was working with my audeze isine 10 but it sounds much better with the sony's.  I didn't bother trying my HEX V2 on it but I am pretty impressed listening to all the clips they provide.


----------



## Erik Garci

Jodiuh said:


> Can someone with Atmos receiver setup confirm whether or not info bar shows Atmos?





Erik Garci said:


> Unfortunately I don't have an Atmos receiver. The info bar might still show TrueHD because the Xbox is sending a TrueHD stream to the receiver. The TrueHD stream contains an Atmos substream.


I have an Atmos receiver now, and the info bar just shows "Dolby TrueHD" while the receiver is decoding the Atmos substream.


----------



## Jodiuh

Erik Garci said:


> I have an Atmos receiver now, and the info bar just shows "Dolby TrueHD" while the receiver is decoding the Atmos substream.


Thanks a lot for that. So it must be we’re probably is still correctly functioning when using Dolby Atmos for headphones. It does definitely sound quite a bit better on true hd or Atmos encoded films.


----------



## 498552

n3cr1d said:


> Hi guys, any idea if dolby atmos can support 24bit? My audioquest dragonfly usb dac cant support 16bit, only 24bits and i cant select spatial sound because this. Maybe a future update? Thanks!



I would like to know this as well as I'm thinking about buying a Myflower ARC which via USB only goes as low as 24/48.


----------



## Monstieur (Jul 12, 2020)

Erik Garci said:


> I have an Atmos receiver now, and the info bar just shows "Dolby TrueHD" while the receiver is decoding the Atmos substream.


That doesn't mean Xbox was also decoding TrueHD + Atmos. The Dolby Audio Decoder Media Foundation transform on Windows can decode only E-AC-3 + Atmos, and Xbox probably uses the same decoder. Even licensed Atmos decoders on various Android media players and LG webOS can decode only E-AC-3 + Atmos. I'm guessing only Blu-ray players are licensed to decode TrueHD, and I don't think any are licensed to decode TrueHD + Atmos.


----------

