-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
PS5's 3D audio is so bad
- Thread starter exodus
- Start date
- Status
Does *anyone* like PS5's weird rushing-water surround sound test? Kyle Orland and I are still baffled as to whatever the heck those five sound options are supposed to tell you. None of them offer an apparent halo or dome of sound.
Yeah, this is a good point. Even for someone who is supposedly "technically literate", what am I supposed to be listening for? I sure as hell don't know. I ended up just selecting what sounded the "best" to me.
Only one of them sounds right to my ears. The others all sounds off.
Well for me personally, I'm pretty sensitive to sounds so when I heard it and it said to raise or lower the sound so it's ear level and not below or above you, I immediately noticed the difference. YMMV of course.
Demon's Souls and Spider-Man sound pretty good using the PS4's Platinum headset.
Seemed pretty straightforward to me, I haven't bothered to try out their impact on actual game audio but the test worked fine as described. Each profile did sound slightly either (physically) higher or lower to me - I felt a little basic when the default profile was the one that sounded level to my ears. Maybe y'all have ears that Cerny needs a photo of.
It's sound good but not mind blowing. Sony need to get on the dolby atmos/dts x bandwagon, if they don't want to pay they can do it via app like MS. Not everyone like using damn headphones, and I don't really care how advance it is, true home theater surround sound is always better.
Based on the replies I don't have much to add, but I strongly disagree. Especially in Demon's Souls.
This was the same for me. One sounded clear / right, the others didn't sound as clear or full.
If you're not plugged into the controller then you're probably not using 3D audio. The only other way is USB and that way is not compatible with many USB DACs.
PS4 games sound a bit off to me but PS5 games have sound pretty much great (so far). Im plugged in on the controller with my bang-for-the-buck-chinaheadset.
Exactly what i came to post and i definitely noticed the difference
Following the Road to PS5, I expected a much better and significantly easier to understand method to finding ones closest HRTF than whatever is in the PS5 now. It's honestly so baffling.
My audio experience has been pretty good once I set everything up, but the higher/lower UI + accompanying sound is so confusing.
It's not bad, it's subjective. Virtual surround sound and it's multiple implementations won't please everyone.
Lol this is like the "I can't tell between 1080 and 4k" but for audio. Some people think it's life changing, others are meh.
Yeah no, the consensus is definitely not that it's bad.
I'm gonna go with OP just having an ear profile not supported yet.
I'm gonna go with OP just having an ear profile not supported yet.
Demon's Souls and Spider-Man Miles Morales sounds great to me with the 3D audio on. I have tried it with the Steelseries Arctis 7P via wireless and also plugged into the controller.
I also used a pair of Sennheiser HD 598 plugged into the controller and it sounds great. Not muffled or anything.
I also used a pair of Sennheiser HD 598 plugged into the controller and it sounds great. Not muffled or anything.
I use a DAC and amplifier with my studio headphones at my desktop. That was a massive difference. The PS5's 3D audio, in comparison, sounds terrible on those same headphones.
I've tried both 3D and stereo in Miles, Demon's, and Dirt 5.
Miles sounded different but not necessarily better. Demon's sounds pretty great either way.
Dirt 5 actually surprised me with the 3D audio and I think that was the biggest improvement over stereo. It made the soundscape and music much more interesting. I don't know if I'd say it gave me the feeling of presence, but none of these games are really achieving that.
Miles sounded different but not necessarily better. Demon's sounds pretty great either way.
Dirt 5 actually surprised me with the 3D audio and I think that was the biggest improvement over stereo. It made the soundscape and music much more interesting. I don't know if I'd say it gave me the feeling of presence, but none of these games are really achieving that.
It's game dependent, Miles Morales takes a big hit in sound quality with it on while Demon's Souls doesn't and sounds very good. Dirt 5 sounds fine with it on and does some interesting things with the music. For Miles Morales you're better off sticking to the stereo mix in headphones. Spatial audio inherently messes with frequency response in order to achieve the 3D effect, some games handle it better than others.
The thing with audio is that you need to have high quality sound design and mixing to begin with, slapping spatial audio on top on something that sounds bad to begin with won't save it. Valhalla sounds like dog excrement no matter what processing you slap on it. One pro tip is that you should be disabling Tempest in any old games that don't natively support it (currently 99% of games since nothing on PS4 does).
The thing with audio is that you need to have high quality sound design and mixing to begin with, slapping spatial audio on top on something that sounds bad to begin with won't save it. Valhalla sounds like dog excrement no matter what processing you slap on it. One pro tip is that you should be disabling Tempest in any old games that don't natively support it (currently 99% of games since nothing on PS4 does).
I think it's pretty dam good, definitely better then surround sound or ps4 3d. Its not something that sticks out like a sore thumb but it's definitely better. Demon's souls has some good areas for it, like when the dragon is flying around and in the prison you can definitely tell where someone is from him screaming.
It's just setting an audio 'height' for your ears, compared to their relative location to the drivers. If you change the setting back and forth the sound should seem like it's going either go up or down, as in above or below your ears.
Everyone's ears are different. Personally speaking I despise 3D audio solutions—Tempest, Sonic, Atmos headphones, etc. I keep them all off.
To be fair that's an Ubisoft/AC problem. It was the same for Origins and Odyssey.
Yup, exactly this. Maybe it will change when we get some of the ear photo solutions they talked about, but no 3D audio has ever sounded good to me. It has this muffled sound like the OP was describing. Not just the PS5, but all those simulated 3D audio engines and other games that have been lauded for their 3D audio like Half Life Alyx.
Hopefully the more personal profiles can fix this for me in the future.
I'm playing on Sennheiser headphones connected via an Astro Mixamp and the sound absolutely does not sound muffled in any way when playing PS5 games. It's clean and directional audio is on point. When I first booted up Apex Legends the sound seemed blown out but Demon's Souls and Astrobot were both great.
Yes, exactly, I would much prefer personalized sound profiles. I have these pair of Even H4s and they build a profile of your hearing based on this sound test you complete in an app. It works great and funny enough a 50$ pair of headphones (they were on clearance, might still be) is my most used pair of headphones today.
EDIT: I would much prefer games used path tracing for sound effects too, but I haven't really come across anything that does that all that well yet.
Can confirm OP the audio quality is far worse when 3D Audio is enabled, there is a slight sound stage improvement but the overall quality is worsened and things like vocals are lowered in some scenes and fine details are lost.
And yes I tuned my 3D Audio profile before testing.
(Tested on my Hifiman Sundara, 58x & T50rp mkiii, through the controller and with my dac amp setup through optical)
And yes I tuned my 3D Audio profile before testing.
(Tested on my Hifiman Sundara, 58x & T50rp mkiii, through the controller and with my dac amp setup through optical)
Dolby Atmos for Headphones sounds nice to me, but the software support is mostly poor.
Yes, it's shit. They should've licenses Dolby codecs for sure. I had both the pulse 3d and arctis 7x and it's extremely bad.
My HyperX Cloud II's sound pretty great when plugged into the DualSense. Not played many games yet but I've not had any issues with muffled or bad sound so far.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.
It shares the same poor/artificial sounding quality of other virtual surround codecs. It also sounds way over-compressed. Disabling it improves depth, soundstage, imaging and clarity. Tried it using multiple studio and audiophile grade headphones.
Unfortunately, it's looking like another setting to A/B in each supported game before deciding whether the drawbacks are worth keeping it enabled or not.
It shares the same poor/artificial sounding quality of other virtual surround codecs. It also sounds way over-compressed. Disabling it improves depth, soundstage, imaging and clarity. Tried it using multiple studio and audiophile grade headphones.
Unfortunately, it's looking like another setting to A/B in each supported game before deciding whether the drawbacks are worth keeping it enabled or not.
People need to also realise that this literally just came out and has very limited native game support. DTS X didn't sound good when it first came out either with the same muffled and distant audio issues but they improved it over time. The same thing will happen here, especially when someone like Naughty Dog or Santa Monica starting working with it on a marquee title.
The way I tuned it was setting it to whatever felt most level to my ears then going into demon's souls and standing below an archer/crossbow guy and if he sounded too high or low I would keep adjusting it until it sounded like he was actually above me in the correct position.
- Status