[bboy-mass]

Hi guys,

I used to have a Denon amp AVC-A1SRA ???? which had a Dolby Headphone mode (was fantastic), but now ive moved other to a Tag processor and Rotel power amps, I really miss the Dolby headphone mode.lol

I was told that Thrustmaster have a DD5.1 headphone unit for £99, but the Denon used to pass DTS as well as DD.

Anyone know of a top of the range Dolby/DTS headphone unit?

My kit:
Tag AV30R
Rotel 5x amp
Rotel 2x amp (used for ex channesl)
Arcam DV88+
Xbox
GameCube
PSP
B&W SE
Kef 200C
B&W Ceiling Speakers x 4

Regards
MAss

[Suave]

Hey BBoy-Mass...

Look no further than the Pioneer SE-DIR800C's - theres a thread about them on this headphone forum!

Suave!

[Carl Ed]

Originally Posted by Suave

Hey BBoy-Mass...

Look no further than the Pioneer SE-DIR800C's - theres a thread about them on this headphone forum!

Suave!

Or prehaps at least far enough to see the Philips HD1500.

[NicolasB]

If you really want something "top of the range" then you might want to check out the AKG Audiosphere II/Hearo 999 system.

Click here for processor-only or here for with-headphones.

[honglong]

Hi,

I have the Pioneer dolby headphones and the Philips HD1500.

I have throughly listened to both of them. I also used to have a very high end home cinema system.

I would highly recommend the Philips HD1500. They aren't a little bit better than any other dolby headphone systems you can buy (including the pioneer), they are leagues above them. The pioneer seems impressive at first, thumpy bass, good midrange, etc. But the Phillips ones are so open and clear which incredible bass and i think the only ones which create a virtual home cinema.

Unbeatable have them for £230 ish. You will not be disappointed.

[NicolasB]

Originally Posted by honglong

I would highly recommend the Philips HD1500. They aren't a little bit better than any other dolby headphone systems you can buy (including the pioneer), they are leagues above them.

Does that include the AKG Hearo 999? Impressive, if so.

Bboy-mass, had you thought about getting the Dolby Headphone upgrade for your Tag processor? (That's only available for a dual-SHARC processor, of course).

Hi

I have a Thrustmaster T510 and I am mostly pleased with it. The surround is awesome. I do have a very specific issue with it with respect to the xbox which I am unable to escape but other than that it is excellent. They really have an immersive effect and for £99 you can't really complain.

The issue with respect to the xbox is that from time to time the T510 decoder has to be switched on and off. This is because the xbox has a habit of switching off the DD output via optical during load stages of games etc. This confuses the T510. I think this is because the optical data is wrong or malformed in some way. My Kenwood amp doesn't worry, but just flashes the DD light whilst it happens. Other than that they are excellent and I have not had an issue when watching DVDs with several different DVD players (including the xbox) and my Sky+ box when watching movies.

If anyone has also experienced this, then I would leave to hear about this.

-Junpit

[TameRacingDriver]

Originally Posted by honglong

I have the Pioneer dolby headphones and the Philips HD1500.

I have throughly listened to both of them. I also used to have a very high end home cinema system.

I would highly recommend the Philips HD1500. They aren't a little bit better than any other dolby headphone systems you can buy (including the pioneer), they are leagues above them. The pioneer seems impressive at first, thumpy bass, good midrange, etc. But the Phillips ones are so open and clear which incredible bass and i think the only ones which create a virtual home cinema.

Unbeatable have them for £230 ish. You will not be disappointed.

What are the HD1500's like for music? Are they competitive with midrange (i.e. £100) hifi headphones?

[honglong]

NicolasB: As good as the AKG Hearo 999? Most definetly in surround sound mode. Nothing can touch the philips. Hense the very good reviews everywhere.

pbirkett: The HD1500 are also very good for music. So good in fact that i sold my Grado SR80. The philips sound virtually the same, is wireless, but where they come into their own is with dolby headphone. You can get dolby headphone to mimic 2 speakers as well as 5.1 and it does a fabolous job.

My advice, buy them, try them. Without the doubt the best wireless headphones you can buy with dolby headphone at the moment.

I am sure anyone that has tried these and compared them to other headphones will agree with me how good they are.

[TameRacingDriver]

Thats interesting actually because I am either contemplating buying a mid priced hifi headphone setup or I could for something like the HD1500 as it would be cheaper than what I was going to get...

[A.T.]

May I hijack this thread instead of creating another topic on the same subject?

I'm in the market for a Dolby Digital headphone too as I have issues about setting up a proper HT with speakers, subwoofer, AV receiver and all that jazz.

Right now, it's a choice between the Pioneer SE-DIR800C and the Sony MDR-DS8000C. The Pioneer has raving reviews but it's not available in my country because Pioneer has stopped bringing it in. The Sony one is available but it's bl*&dy expensive and I don't get a demo. And I don't seems to be able to find any reviews on this model. The Phillips one is out because it's not available here too and it doesn't look comfortable. I don't really wanna import online because of warranty issue. At least the Sony one does have local warranty. Since I can't get a demo for it, is there any reviews on the EXPENSIVE Sony DD headphone?

Thanks in advance for direction and advice.

Cheers,
A.T.

[NicolasB]

Sony don't use Dolby Headphone as such, do they? They have their own proprietary version of it called Virtual 'Phones Technology (or something like that).

[A.T.]

Hi NicholasB,

Don't comprehend the virtual thingy.

Looking at this Sony Infrared Cordless® Digital Surround Headphone System MDR-DS8000.

[NicolasB]

"Dolby Headphone" is an algorithm - like a computer programme, or a sequence of mathematical steps. You feed in six speakers' worth of digital signals at one end, and, at the other end, you end up with two digital streams which can then be fed to D/A conversion and eventually to headphones.

VPT is Sony's own private version of this. It does a similar sort of thing, but by a different mathematical process. I've no idea which system is preferable, although I'm intrigued by the "gyro head tracking" business. If that is able to change the signal fed to the headphones every time you turn your head so that the sound appears still to be coming from the same direction as it was before you turned your head, that would be rather cool.

[A.T.]

Okay, got it.

The head tracking thingy sounds interesting. But can't a demo unit in my country. Sigh...

Maybe I should just go for AT's DCL3000. Hahaha!

[Carl Ed]

I have the next Sony model down (DS5100s). VPT is designed as a compromise of different head-related-transfer-functions. The effect is pretty believable, but not perfect. The centre channel comes off as quite muffled a lot of the time. There is quite a lot of IR hiss with them you don't get with the other units. The headphones themselves are pretty poorly constructed, but sound very good.

I'm intending to replace mine (probably with the Philips units) once I have some spare money.

[A.T.]

It seems that Sony headsets don't garner decent reviews. Personally, I tried the very first Dolby headphone by Sony and that was donkey years ago. Verdict? Not worth the price.

But technology has catched on over the years. And NAB 2005 is on now. Maybe better Dolby headphones!

So, I'm struggling betweenthe Pioneer SE-DIR800C and the Audio-Technica ATH-DCL3000. The latter is pretty expensive. Maybe I will settle for the former. Who knows something less pops up this week.

Looking for Philips reviews now and hopefully find a demo unit somewhere.

[A.T.]

After reading this article at http://timefordvd.com/tutorial/DolbyHeadphone.shtml

I decided to drop Sony all together.

Does Dolby Headphone have any limitations?

One limitation of Dolby Headphone is its inability to re-create the surround back channels of Extended Surround sound formats such as THX Surround EX (Dolby Digital EX) or DTS Extended Surround (DTS-ES). Remember that 5.1-channel surround sound formats call for surround sound channel speakers to be placed beside the primary listening location, as shown in the figure above. In the 6.1-channel Extended Surround formats, the additional surround sound speakers (two are usually recommended) are placed behind the primary listening location, for complete 360-degree envelopment. So Dolby Headphone, if it were to ever support these 6.1-channel surround sound formats, would have to re-create sounds coming from behind the listener. The front-to-back imaging is tricky when all you've got to work with are two headphone mini-speakers that are placed side-by-side.

[honglong]

A.T.

Seriously, i own the Philips HD1500 and the Pioneer SE-DIR800C and the philips are the best by miles.

[A.T.]

I wish I can demo all these Dolby headphones. But no one seems to bring them in. Sigh...

The Pioneer SE-DIR800C seems to the overall fave DH online. Sony headphones overall have weak reviews. I'm interested in the Audio-Technica one. Then again, it's so expensive that not much reviews are out there. The Japanese have a lot of yak on it but they are all in Japanese language. Tried to use the web translation tool and it's quite horrible reading the translated broken English.

[Dr_Mike]

Originally Posted by A.T.

After reading this article at http://timefordvd.com/tutorial/DolbyHeadphone.shtml
....would have to re-create sounds coming from behind the listener. The front-to-back imaging is tricky when all you've got to work with are two headphone mini-speakers that are placed side-by-side.[/I][/COLOR]

I wouldn't pay too much attention to statements like this. By the same argument, Dolby Headphone would not work at all and couldn't differentiate between front and surround speakers in a 5.1 setup. If you can hear surround sound with two ears, albeit on a movable head, then you should be able to reproduce it with headphones. There is no theoretical limit on the number of 'speakers' you could simulate other than the power of the DSP.

On Dolby Digital EX, the surround back channel is recorded into the Left and Right surrounds anyway so you still hear it. I've tried the THX test tones from a DD EX disk through my Pioneers and although they don't support EX per se, the tone for surround back did seem to be coming from 6 o'clock and was distinct from the surround left & rights. For DTS 6.1 Discrete, the surround back channel is probably ignored by the Dolby Headphone bit, but DTS 6.1 Matrix should work the same as DD EX.

I hope Dolby continue to develop Dolby Headphone to take advantage of the newer surround formats as they come along, as I said above there is no theoretical limit to the number of speakers it can simulate.

I bought the HD1500 via eBay and when i received it, the right earshelve was allready broken in the box. I tried to fix it with glue, but that didn't work. I'm affraid that my money is gone...but: the unit itself is still ok, so:

I saw that there are two outputs for other headphones. I don't know what to do with those...

does this mean that I can put any other headphone unit in those? Also wireless? Or do they have to be with wire?? Do they need to be expensive digital headphones???

I really don't know, can anyone please help me with this???

THANKS!