I mean, it is Sony, you can expect everything from them. And the Cerny GDC talk make a precedent (you are just in the third rank without 3D audio).
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3d audio for PS5 event
- Thread starter chris 1515
- Start date
let me go ahead and block off a private conference call that day...
For those less versed in the tech: Make sure to use a standard stereo headphone/headset and make sure there's no additional processing going on ("spatial sound", "virtual surround", even anything labeled "3d audio").
The spatial audio and HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) should be baked into the 2.0 Stereo stream.
While the end-product will likely have profiles for each, proper 3D audio tends to be best on In-Ears first, Over-Ears second and On-Ears last.
If the audio isn't effective for you when you watch the stream, don't panic, as Sony will likely have to use a generic HRTF profile that suits most people well enough for a decent experience across the board; and it may not suit you so well. Sony have said they will be offering 5 profiles at launch and may offer additional options for refining the experience further.
The spatial audio and HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) should be baked into the 2.0 Stereo stream.
While the end-product will likely have profiles for each, proper 3D audio tends to be best on In-Ears first, Over-Ears second and On-Ears last.
If the audio isn't effective for you when you watch the stream, don't panic, as Sony will likely have to use a generic HRTF profile that suits most people well enough for a decent experience across the board; and it may not suit you so well. Sony have said they will be offering 5 profiles at launch and may offer additional options for refining the experience further.
You know what... I might just lie and say that I have a personal matter to attend to at that time, it's actually the last hours of my work day lol.
You only have two ears. It's the Head Related Transfer Function that helps your brain figure out where the sound is coming from, just shifting a few degrees can alter the sound and make you figure out where that pesky bird is located. That's what 3D audio is trying to replicate.
I've got this pretty badass Sony noise canceling pair of wireless headphones that would be perfect đź‘Ś I'm so excited
Assuming they will pipe 3D audio, I wonder how consistently it will be experienced. Based on what Cerny said in the Road to PS5 presentation, depending on how much you differ from the selected HRTF, you may not notice any difference vs regular audio. If that's the case I'd expect some people who think this is great, and some who don't notice it at all.
(Great that they'll try for those who are close to the selected HRTF though - again, assuming they are actually going to try to present to your headphones the way a PS5 will).
(Great that they'll try for those who are close to the selected HRTF though - again, assuming they are actually going to try to present to your headphones the way a PS5 will).
Eh, I'd lower expectations if you guys are watching a stream. I'd say a downloadable video will fare better in terms of the audio not being compressed a ton
Yeah that's fine. Just a catch all phrase. I got my Siberia 800s ready 🤓or I'll hook up my AirPods to my PC for that in ear experience.
Not really. They can show exactly what you will get with PS5, besides adjusting the HRTF profile.
With surround sound, the sounds are just mixed from general directions, i.e. sound coming from generally your back-left or generally your front-right (as you have 5 speakers and a sub)
3D audio simulates sounds coming from hundreds of different "sources", so it's not just one speaker representing the hundreds of potential sources coming from your back-left. You also get a "distance" sense from it too, so you can hear a bottle break from your back-left, but also the perception of it being above you and like 15 feet away, giving you a more concrete understanding of where that sound came from in 3D space
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Yeah, i'm not expecting tempest engine stuff, it must be something fairly decent to mention it though.
It's going to be Cerny whispering sweet nothings in your ear for 55mins then shows Knack 3: Tempest Rising.
I have those. Aren't they already great sounding? Certainly good enough for a 1080/30 stream.
Ah ok, thank you for explaining. So with that do you think Surround Sound headphones will not be able to take full advantage of it? And I should hold out from buying a new pair of headphones anytime soon. Thanks again.
Surround Sound exists on a flat plane (making it two dimensional) while Spatial Sound has height values meaning it it three dimensional.
The 3D Audio is baked into the 2.0 stereo stream; so if you can plug headphones into a 3.5mm jack on your tv/controller/receiver, then by extension you can broadcast a 2.0 stereo stream that is the same.
They never said 3D Audio was unique for the PS5, they just made clear that they're implementing it properly.
3D Audio in itself isn't new (though most times you see it written on products it's faked or virtualised), what is special is that they're implementing a unified end-to-end solution where the platform has full control over the audio pathway as well as a very powerful dedicated hardware block that allows for an extremely complex soundscape from which the 3D audio is derived.
The key at the end is applying a HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function). This is needed to match the shapes of our inner ears and the acoustics of a human head. Sony will be offering multiple profiles for different ear shapes.
The fact that you can play the resulting stream through any device is a good thing, many other formats require proprietary crap that shouldn't really need to be there. With this solution you plug in bog standard stereo headphones and it should just work.
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Any pair of cheap ear buds should work perfectly fine with it. Not sure if true Surround Sound headphones would work 100% with this though, but virtual surround headset should work as long as you can turn VSS off.
If you are looking to get a top-tier audio experience next-gen, it would probably be smart to hold off for now on making any headset purchases until we get closer to launch.