I
give them 3 out of 5 stars if you only look at the quality of them but 4 out of
5 if the price is included!
My view is
that music with great sound and/or many instruments sounds about 25%
better
with surround sound headphones and approximately 50% better with
surround sound
speakers than to hear stereo versions. Why be a spectator at a distance
from 2
speakers when in surround sound on coming up the middle on stage?!
If you want to start listening to music in
surround sound, but not have the money or space for the many speakers
and
amplifier, then Strix a really good place to start!
Strix
7.1 has 5 units for each ear and sounds reasonable fine. There is a
good spacious
feeling and I've noticed more detail in the music than before. However,
I have
with my ears difficult to sense whether the instruments comes from the
front
and from behind; The 5 units in each ear covers of course also about
20-30 °,
so it restricts the spacious feeling. However, talking to a young gamer
who has
Strix 7.1 that says he can hear the sounds coming from the front or
from
behind.
The figure below shows my perception of the surround sound:
If
5.1 audio are played on Strix7.1 then side-units will be off, but it’s
still
close to being the same feeling. I find it hard to tell the difference
between
the 5.1 mix and 7.1 mixes I've made of the album Metastasia with
Odyssey
(instrumental progressive ambient. More on Bandcamp: https://odysseymusik.bandcamp.com). But
there is a great
difference between stereo and surround edition versions!
Here are the 5 units
:
I think
that Strix7.1 were the around 200 euros worth! Surround with
loudspeakers sounds more surround-like but costs for a reasonable
system 1,300
euros and up (incl. amplifier).
Connecting
the headphones is via one or two USB connectors from a laptop or
desktop
computer to a control device. From here the headphone are connected
through a HDMI
plug. The control unit can turn up and down the volume, front, side,
rear,
center and sub channels. This provides an interactive way to turn up
the channels
with the instruments you would like to highlight! No need to install
any
software just connect them to its laptop or desktop computer. I've
tried to
connect them to a Playstation 3 and Xbox One, but here they are not
supported. We
can hope that a software update one day will support this.
The control unit can also turn up and down for the volume of a detachable microphone (for gamers).
There is
also an HDMI output can be used for a provided plug that goes into 8
phono
jacks; So if you have 6 or 8 active speakers (including a subwoofer)
with RCA
inputs so you do not need to have a surround sound amplifier (Active
speakers
with integrated amplifier needs to be powered from a wall outlet;
example, you
can get them as computer speakers) - So one inexpensive way to put up
5.1 or 7.1
surround sound audio / home theater!
Playing
surround sound from a computer of Blu-ray discs, DVD or multichannel
wav / ac3
/ flac files can occur eg VLC Media Player or Windows Media Player.
Have not
yet found any music in 7.1 (other than the mix of Odyssey I have made)
but as
told 5.1 sounds almost just as fine than 7.1 on Strix 7.1 Bands whio
have made
albums in 5.1 are bands like King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, Pink
Floyd, ELP,
Steve Wilson / Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Steve Hacket, Mike Oldfield,
Rush, Doors
and Depeche Mode. Some of Genesis, Gavin Harrison, Dream Theater,
Hawkwind,
Caravan, Anathema, Katatonia, Jean Michel Jarre, Transatlantic, XTC,
Tears for
Fears and Simple Minds. All mentioned are studio albums and in addition
there
are many live recordings in surround sound. Finally should be mentioned
that
there are many classic releases in 5.1 audio.
Read more:
https://www.asus.com/uk/Headphones-Headsets
Jan Printz 25th
sep 2016, edit 16th May 2020.