Hardware CM Storm Sirus Review

CM Storm looks to go one better than the Asus Vulcan, sporting true 5.1 surround speakers...

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/peripherals/2012/01/17/cm-storm-sirus-review/1

 

Still never found a set of headset's that sound better than my Creative Fatal1ty HS-980 Professional headset, I had many different types and makes of headset over the years including the so called amazing Corsair HS1's but found, them to be to quiet.

Will have a look at the Asus Vulcan ones though as if they are better than my Creative ones then finally I get something with a better microphone, as that is the only thing that let's down my current set.

 

Will you guys be reviewing the latest release from creative which are wireless? My soundblaster arena broke a while back and I'm looking at the Wrath as a replacement.

Good review, shame that the sound was bad. I was actually interested in the mixer.

 

eh...

http://www.razerzone.com/tiamat/en

 

First honesst review of a 5.1/surround headset I've read. All the other reviews of this headset were glowing but having tried 2 different brands of surround headset and found the surround useless compared to 5.1 speakers, I doubt any true surround headphones exist. The Roccat Kave and Zalman's I owned were unable to accurately project sound. Nothing at all like surround.

 

You just can't experience 'real' surround with a headphone. the drivers are to close to the ears to represent a distance of a object that makes noise. Thus only with volume amounts it can simulate distance. The other effect that it needs is reflection of sounds on other surfaces surrounding you, if a game can compensate for this it would be closer in accuracy of simulating a environment but it probably needs enormous amount of processor power to simulate all distances and object types the sound reflects on, kind of ray-tracing for sound-waves.

Even a surround system can't replicate the real world experience although these are a lot better then headsets because they reflect sounds on surfaces just like in the real world.

The only 100% accurate surround experience is when you are standing in the middle of the street (or your natural environment for that matter) and listen to all the sounds surrounding you.

 

That is why I won't buy a surround sound headset because they are jsut not worth it, I listen to music on my headphones and games but that is it if I want to watch a film I put it on to my surround sound system and use that as it's better, than headphones and allot better than the poor speakers in the tv's now.

I tried the virtual 5.1 setting given to me by my soundcard and I found it more of a hinderance than a benefit so I went back to 2.0 stereo sound.

 

It's shocking the number of people out there who believe they're getting accurate positional audio using the CMSS 3d gimmick and a pair of headphones.

The worst part are the review sites who give these surround headsets good reviews.

 

I don't know and not trying to be an arse here but have you review the Roccat Kave?! If not, can you do that?!
I followed the Creative Blaster Arena from Bit-tech and I'm very pleased with them, only switching headset when these are dead and will only change for something really better (5.1 or the Asus Vulcan ANC).

The only complaint about Creative it's their support, my wires at the usb connector broke when my dog left with the wire underneath him and they said that a schematic would be impossible, they only could give me a special discount to buy new ones.... To this day, no discount and I fixed them because someone went through the same as myself and with trial and error method completed a 100% accurate schematic: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/57819-32-sound-blaster-arena-surround-gaming-headset-broken

 

£120.00 for a set of headphones? yeah I'd love to.

 

Had a similar problem with creative except for it was a sound card, that I "bought" from a shop with allot of other component's at the same time and the card was faulty but I couldn't take it back to the shop as they missed it off the bill so in the end I didn't pay for it.

Spoke to creative and they were not interested so I won't buy anything from them other than the headset's until I find something I think is better and when that happen's I say goodbye to them for good.

 

Wow... nobody buy these please, then maybe they'll stop making them. Surround headsets suck; tiny drivers and reliance on software that works just as well with stereo headphones.

You can get some awesome headphones for £120. I feel pretty confident in saying you could spend £20 and get better sound than any silly multi-driver design provides.

/rant

 

The Kave totally fails on POSITIONAL AUDIO despite the fake reviews elsewhere stating otherwise. The look, feel and build quality of the Roccat Kave is superb. They are solid and with a textured almost rubberised plastic surface. They come with a control box with level sliders for the front, center, sub and a main volume wheel that works as volume with any video or music player. Audio quality is not bad. Sound great for movies and pretty good for games. Don't really cut it for music, high frequencies aren't so clear. They are far better than the awful Zalman surround headphones of yester-year but for positional audio forget it.

They have 3 drivers per ear in a pyramid fashion. That in no way comes anywhere close to positional audio. The big problem with any so-called positional audio (including the CMSS 3d gimmick) is that you will never hear sound in front of you. It comes either to the sides or seemingly from behind but since there is no forward projection, there is no positional audio. So all those kiddies who believe they're getting positional audio with CMSS 3d? Big laughter.

 

They are, to some extent, getting positional audio, but it's far from perfect.

There are three ways to produce positional audio;

1. Split the sound into multiple channels and pipe it to positioned speakers, like with a 5.1 system. This works pretty well, because the variations in the sound are being produced naturally by the different positions of your speakers around to room.

2. Use software such as CMSS 3D. This works less well because the variations in the sound are being produced by software, which rarely does a perfect job.

3. Record the sounds in stereo and play them back in stereo - by this I mean recording using two microphones positioned around a fake head of sorts. This works very well too, because again the variations in the sound are being produced naturally, with the sound changing depending on where it is in relation to the pair of microphones.

Things to note;

- Options 2 and 3 only require stereo headphones
- Option 2 tends to suck
- There is no option 4 which says "buy a surround headset", simply because they don't really work, depending mostly on Option 2 to produce the effect, which can be done with a stereo headset just as well without crippling the sound quality with tiny drivers.

My advice if you want positional audio? Buy a 5.1 system and sit in the middle of it. Job done. Audio created using option 3 (above) sounds great, but there's not much of it about because it's much more complicated (and therefore expensive) to record.

EDIT: I forgot Option 5 - go to the theatre instead of watching movies

 

By positional audio I mean in the sense that you can clearly tell when something or someone is in front of you, side, or behind. You simply can't get that with any of the surround headphones I've heard. CMSS 3d is supposed to offer positional audio whereby you can locate a sound in a 3d space, It simply doesn't work.

Perhaps if you had a series of high/mid miniature electret drivers that formed one large speaker over each ear, then a vibration driver also in each ear to provide the lower frequencies you might end up with something closer to positional audio. You'd be recreating on a miniature scale the 5.1 speaker array.

 

Why do you never review the attached microphones? How good bad the microphone is is always important when you buy a headset !

 

Thank you for your opinion on the Kave. I have a friend of mine that talks wonders of it and sometimes could hear sounds first or further than myself (as said before I have the Creative Arena USB). What you said about positional audio to not being able to detect sounds in front of us, it's totally accurate. I love my Arena and they also a great sound and bass but when playing I find myself sometimes searching from where the sound came and sometimes it's in front but it's no way clear. I know for a fact that they are awesome because the transition from the older headphones to this was notorious and improved my gaming (as sound recognition and position) but when the sounds comes from my front I get myself lost.

Sad to see the Kave not being up to the task as I thought and wished it were

 

I was a bit sad to see the Kaves go because they looked great and had nice build quality and feel, but I bought them for positional audio and on that they failed. I always avoided surround speakers because I simply didn't know how I could position them all. I kaved in and bought Logitech X540 a year ago and it was a great decision. The sound quality was so good I am happy to use them for music! The front centre speakers sits on top of my display, I have 2 speakers stands (bought as a set of 4 surround stands from tesco for £35). Front left and right on the 2 stands just in front of me (either side). The 2 x rear speakers are on the wall behind.

The positional audio is way beyond anything I've heard from headphones. On BF3 I can hear things coming from behind or in front. Bullets and rockets can be heard whizzing past from front to way behind me.

 

But you'd still have to "fake" the different way in which the sound interacts with both ears using software, so the fact that you've got multiple drivers makes no real difference.