There's some inquiries I got often, would like to answer:
-paraphrasing-Why MixAmp hate/backlash?
I've none, don't get where some people got that impression. I think is a fantastic device, great for starters, love its Chat/Mix capabilities, EQ and above average compare to mainstream DACs, I wish it has more power that's all. I kept my gen4. I see inferior DACs(SoundBlaster's, TurtleBeach, HyperX dongles) a toy, MixAmp is a tool, Mayflower ARC is a frikin' weapon.
The main reason this thread started was to improve and get more of our MixAmps.
Why 3D Surround of Headphones I called fake surround?
Because it is, a true surround experience requires many channels or speakers, our skull, a brain and two astonishing good organic microphones with a special cartilage that we called ears. If a sound came from one direction, let's say our left, this wave came from out the speakers, bounces in to a walls and is pick for our left hear BUT also, the remaing waves reflectios are picked by our right ear which hear them taking to account also our head mass, all these our brain interprets and process all these as surround sound. This is just not possible with only two speakers (our headphones), without proper hardware.
What marketing sells as 3D Surround 7.1 on headphones is snake oil, a filter that change sound adding reverb to give you a spacious sound sensation, just like you take a picture and apply a sepia filter to make it look vintage.
There is a way to recreate the true surround explained above, and that's either:
Recording a sound source with a head with microphones instead of hears, and we called
binaural or true hardware, change an audio source to recreate that head so a source can be heard by one hear and abit for another one... and that's something known as
crossfade, like DIRAC offers on the Monolith 124459 or other very high end THX certificate DACs. These procesing makes you feel that you are not wearing a headphone more like you are listen a modest home theater system on a very dry acoustic treated room.
But I'm not against simulated surround, dolby atmos for headphones, I see as a flavor, spice for your sound experience and I love spices. What I'm against is all that marketing disinformed oil-snake @#$%.
The true surround sound will give you and advantage for sound positioning?, assuming the game audio mix is well recorded and precise - yes absolutely.
But, a stereo sound will give you and advantage over it, just like when you increase the brightness on your monitor to see on dark spaces, or add more hue for red spectrum to see visual cues like getting hit, is not pretty it looks hideous but gies you a visual advantage. Awesome precise stereo imaging gives you advantageous sound localizing over surround, and bright sound eq with high midrange, dull bass and sharp treble will be the best for competitive gaming. It will destroy your ears XD but is a weapon.
I loved audio, and most games are recorded on Stereo mixes due its broad wide audience, so I prefer the best Stereo DAC I can get, if the audio source has a nice binaural recording is a huge plus which will beat any fake surround and it will give you closer to a crossfade sound surround (which has a bit of lag due the sound processing) for a very small fraction of what you need to pay for. If you want the best surround, build a home theater multichannel system, period.
