Okay, so after scouring the internet for information, I'd like to say this first and foremost:
This is not a debate as to whether or not 7.1 headsets are a gimmick.
This is not a debate as to which sound card is best.
This is not a debate as to how good or bad a certain company is at producing a certain product.
Here's my issue that I'm wondering if any of you could help with..
I purchased the Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset on a whim because I got it on the cheaps slightly used. I purchased the ROG Xonar Phoebus on the cheaps aswell, because the internet seems to think it's a good sound card. There's nothing wrong with either product physically. The problem are the drivers... from what I can tell, either ASUS has monkeys working on their development team, or someone dropped the ball HARD and never picked it up.
For starters, they have a set of drivers dated to 2013 that works fairly decent. The headset (which I'd assume the case is the same for ANY 7.1 headset) has to be plugged in to side/spdif out, sub, left and right (don't bother saying this is wrong because it's not wrong, if you plug it in any other way you don't get side channel audio - I tried. Unless ofcourse there's some workaround that I missed - then by all means tell me). In doing so, you no longer get the option to set headphone impedance as nothing is being sent out the headphone jack. All of the 7.1 functionality is still in place. FlexBass, which is essential to keep sub-bass frequencies from entering the other speakers, works like a charm. The only gripe I found with it was the complete lack of a graphic equalizer to account for the fact that literally every audio setup on earth behaves differently across the audio spectrum... it's curious that they would not include that on what could be considered a $300+ card on its release (and is still fairly pricey).
They included dolby home theater v4, which is a joke in my eyes. It completely distorts audio, even with every setting ticked off. No point turning it on and suffering through that just to use ITS equalizer. It's specifically painful in my case because I produce music as a hobby and I'd at least like my headphones to be SOMEWHAT accurate. I know they won't sound like my studio monitors, but at this point the audio quality is so bad it's laughable - and I know it's not the headsets fault because when properly EQ'd they sound great!
Sooo, I did some quick research online and found that the drivers I had were outdated. I downloaded the most recent ones, which includes the "sonic suite for phoebus" - a MASSIVE joke. It no longer detects that there's even a sub channel (or if it does, the GUI doesn't even so much as hint at it). There's no FlexBass or even a similar alternative to prevent subbass from being sent to the other speakers. Still can't set impedence (and I'd imagine a lot of 7.1 headset users would be requesting this by now, regardless of if its a gimmick or not, unless Razer just wired their headset weird).
Am I at a dead end? My choices at this point are:
A: Suck it up and listen to a horribly balanced reproduction of audio with the old drivers, but on the plus side I get bass
B: Use the new drivers, get EQ, no bass
C: Sell phoebus and buy ____ card that will actually have drivers worth paying money for
D: ??????
This is not a debate as to whether or not 7.1 headsets are a gimmick.
This is not a debate as to which sound card is best.
This is not a debate as to how good or bad a certain company is at producing a certain product.
Here's my issue that I'm wondering if any of you could help with..
I purchased the Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset on a whim because I got it on the cheaps slightly used. I purchased the ROG Xonar Phoebus on the cheaps aswell, because the internet seems to think it's a good sound card. There's nothing wrong with either product physically. The problem are the drivers... from what I can tell, either ASUS has monkeys working on their development team, or someone dropped the ball HARD and never picked it up.
For starters, they have a set of drivers dated to 2013 that works fairly decent. The headset (which I'd assume the case is the same for ANY 7.1 headset) has to be plugged in to side/spdif out, sub, left and right (don't bother saying this is wrong because it's not wrong, if you plug it in any other way you don't get side channel audio - I tried. Unless ofcourse there's some workaround that I missed - then by all means tell me). In doing so, you no longer get the option to set headphone impedance as nothing is being sent out the headphone jack. All of the 7.1 functionality is still in place. FlexBass, which is essential to keep sub-bass frequencies from entering the other speakers, works like a charm. The only gripe I found with it was the complete lack of a graphic equalizer to account for the fact that literally every audio setup on earth behaves differently across the audio spectrum... it's curious that they would not include that on what could be considered a $300+ card on its release (and is still fairly pricey).
They included dolby home theater v4, which is a joke in my eyes. It completely distorts audio, even with every setting ticked off. No point turning it on and suffering through that just to use ITS equalizer. It's specifically painful in my case because I produce music as a hobby and I'd at least like my headphones to be SOMEWHAT accurate. I know they won't sound like my studio monitors, but at this point the audio quality is so bad it's laughable - and I know it's not the headsets fault because when properly EQ'd they sound great!
Sooo, I did some quick research online and found that the drivers I had were outdated. I downloaded the most recent ones, which includes the "sonic suite for phoebus" - a MASSIVE joke. It no longer detects that there's even a sub channel (or if it does, the GUI doesn't even so much as hint at it). There's no FlexBass or even a similar alternative to prevent subbass from being sent to the other speakers. Still can't set impedence (and I'd imagine a lot of 7.1 headset users would be requesting this by now, regardless of if its a gimmick or not, unless Razer just wired their headset weird).
Am I at a dead end? My choices at this point are:
A: Suck it up and listen to a horribly balanced reproduction of audio with the old drivers, but on the plus side I get bass
B: Use the new drivers, get EQ, no bass
C: Sell phoebus and buy ____ card that will actually have drivers worth paying money for
D: ??????
/www.razersupport.com/gaming-audio/razer-tiamat-71/
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