HCPC Headphones

[Canoehq]

Another boring newbie question I'm afraid, but I hope you can help.

I want to use headphones with my HCPC and new Panny AE100 PJ but am a little confused not only what to buy but even what to ask for !!.

Can headphones give me a full 5.1 surround sound effect (as I will be using a Creative Audigy soundcard ) or can I only listen in stereo. If not, can the soundcard be set to stereo as I obviously don't want to lose the centre (dialogue) channel if I try and listen in 5.1.

Finally, am I right in thinking that wireless headphones are still light years behind wired ones, in terms of hiss, buzzing, loss of signal etc ? Either way, any headphone recommendations as to great sound for the price would be very welcome as I will be a good 15 foot from the PC, so a 5.1 / stereo wireless or 5.1 / stereo wired version would be needed

:blush: :blush: :blush:

Thanks all

[Mr.D]

Don't think that there is a decent set of wireless ones that an average 25quid wired pair won't out-perform at the moment.

There are one or two surround processing units seinhiesser made one a few years ago that was THX accredited but I don't think it was a real format some pseudo prologic thing ( bit sketchy sorry).

there is some virtual headphone DD format that you find on certain discs but not too familiar with what that entails sorry ( sure someone else will help out though)

I'll be initially testing my HTPC using a pair of senhiesser HD600s which can be had for around 100-120quid are generally regarded as the best headphones until you spring for electrostatic or the mucho moolah grado models. I'll also be using a musical fidelity Xcanv2 headphone amp ( 150quid) . This will be until I get a new reciever that takes a digital input ( yes I am one of the merry souls who uses the onboard decoder on their dvd player into an analogue 5.1 input ).

The advantage of this is that you've still got a pair of headphones that sound great for music ( the HD600s are fantastic by the way) rather than a gimmicky surround set that doesn't really "surround" anyway. Just my conjecture.

[Canoehq]

Thanks for that Mr. D.

Wired headphones it is then.

Canoehq.

[dts_boy]

just out of interest, is the audigy any good as far ad a hcpc soundcard goes? i am quite tempted by the new extigy which is like a little external soundcard thingy type device, not sure what you would call it really:confused:

the extigy didn't get a good write up... massive drain on the processor and usb bandwidth problems. The Audigy would be a better alternative, that's the one I'll be going for as I still want to use my PC for games.

Back on subject

PowerDVD XP 4 (full version) has the necessary decoding gubbins for Dolby Digital Headphones effect, which is an algorithm that makes it sound like you are listening to 5.1 surround sound through any old pair of stereo headphones. supposed to be very, very good. Check out their website for more details www.dolby.com