Anyone have a headphone setup that they think is spectacular and say works well with the virtual surround sound? I dont really understand much other than headphone surround is fake and people love to talk bad about it lol
Personally, I have a Logitech G Pro X Lightspeed, which may not be optimal, but it is comfortable. It has DTS for headphones, and I can clearly feel the difference compared to the speakers to know the position of the disablers, especially the dogs and the trappers. Nothing spectacular, I prefer comfort rather than having an unpleasant sensation above the head after 20 minutes of play.
are u playing with stereo or 5.1 in the darktide settings? I’m trying a headset with dobly atmos, I cant say much idk how to surround sound. Are you using a virtual surround setting in DTS?
I configured DTS 7.1 in the Logtech software, I have a license for Windows and in Darktide I leave it on auto otherwise I had conflicts. Sometimes I have to play with the speakers and it switches relatively well like that. Sorry I’m not an expert 
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Google HRTF/Binaural to see how surround sound is faked for 2 cans,aka 3d sound, virtual surround sound.
My setup: PC 38X in virtual 7.1 (7.1 in old sound control panel) w/ GSX 1000 DAC/AMP (USB soundcard ). Game is set to 5.1 (well 7.1 via mod but it doesn’t matter much). I can strongly recommend it or something similar, open back headphones are better for 3d sound they say.
Technically the WWise audio package DT uses supports Windows Spatial Audio (if you have yours on), but IDK if DT has it enabled/working/updated or ever bothered.
Sadly the devs have been very unclear on this front even though StrawHat tried to get answers for us, the devs never replied to specifics like this when the audio blog came out.
The only useful tidbit I got was confirmation that the game does indeed not use a 3rd party internal HRTF (3d sound) plugin to virtualize surround sound when set to stereo.
P.S. Some interesting info diffs v7.1 vs Spatial Sound, MS dev , Games List sorted by Spatial Sound if you want to test your license, PC Gaming Wiki.
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Goddamnit. I knew you’d beat me to this one.
gpk knows his audio stuff. I’d take his advice 
I went with Sony WH1000-XM5 for flexibility, and actually just a stereo DAC (ifi Zen3).
I’ve tried software 3d effects in DolbyAtmos, DTS-X, and the Windows free one (I forget now), but I’m not convinced it’s better than the standard headphone setting in DarkTide for positional gains. Not enough to persuade me to buy a 1-pc-1-time licence.
I should add that so long as you’ve semi-decent cans on, you’ll get fairly good location. The biggest benefit you want though is the bass; crushers make a lot of noise in that range and cheap speakers/headsets are probably why a lot of people get whacked on the back of the head.
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i have Sony and i can recommend against them
Those are all Windows Spatial Audio solutions, Windows Sonic is the free one.
I don’t think DT does Spatial Sound (even though WWise supports it) so it may do nothing except maybe make things worse (I could be wrong, devs won’t clarify).
You need to try the other method for virtual 7.1 speakers, like many of the bundled software suites do, like Logitech.
Some even include full licenses for say DTS, so you can grab the full DTS Headphone X for Windows Spatial Audio supported games.
Some games had a built-in HRTF plugin for 3d virtual sound, and i think others even added it via mods like Skyrim. The WWise suite has support ($) for this AFAIK via the paid Auro Plugin. Quite frankly I think FS should have shelled out for this and had it as an option, it would have gone a looong way.
It’s not really my area of expertise and I don’t have a lot of info to go off, but I can figure some stuff out at least.
What I DO know works is the older other surround sound method, 7.1 virtual speakers in the old windows control panel and setting game to 5.1(7.1).
Leave Spatial Audio Off and make sure your SW is setup for the virtual 7.1 speakers in Windows old Sound control panel or your bundled headset SW.
My GSX 1000 is an external device, but shows up in Win as a 7.1 device. It also has a button (4) to switch to 2.0 or for stereo music etc. without the 7.1 virtualisation. Bonus: it creates a separate virtual communications device so your voice chat is not 3d sound virtualized, this is a very neat bonus.
For those looking for a a good and free solution, try HeSuVi for Equalizer APO.
HeSuVi download | SourceForge.net
It’s pretty easy to set-up and the defaults are fine for most people, it has
^ A decent set of cans goes a long way, trying the dynamic range settings for audio in-game may help too. Open-back should provider better sound-stage for 3d sound too.
However the default stereo sound across the board seems rather limited to me as far as positional sound goes (without HRTF), especially in the rear arc.
I’d wager most would benefit from HeSuVi and setting it to 5.1 in-game.
P.S. An interesting reply from a dev People wondering why there are so many sub-par players - #71 by FatsharkStrawHat, but it still left unanswered questions re: Windows Spatial Sound.
P.P.S. Some interesting info diffs 7.1 vs MS spatial, MS dev , Games List.
Okay let me go ahead and give you the super simple answer. All modern headphones that are decent quality have good surround sound, its all software anyways and you only have two ear holes so all you need is two speakers, also most virtual surround sound software is useless and is at most placebo, again you only have two ears so simulating more speakers isn’t doing anything. There is no magic surround sound options that give you super human hearing its entirely about audio quality and to a lesser extent noise isolation to avoid sound bleed between the sides.
Now that being said, buy DT 770s. This is not a suggestion or recommendation this is a fact, these are the best price point for quality headphones available without any competition. DT 770s have been the industry standard audio engineer/editor/anyone who works with audio headphones since before you were born and many of them are older then your parents and still work better then whatever razer or logitech or whatever else you will find made today. They are a bit expensive but you can get a used pair that will still out live you for about $80. Just make sure to get 80 ohm because your computer probably wont be able to power 250 ohm, you would need to get a proper DAC. There are better headphones but you wont be able to afford them, you cannot find better audio quality at or below or above or even double the price point.
^ This is 100% wrong and contradictory, binaural/HRTF is a real thing and has been around for decades. OFC you have 2 ears, how do you localize stuff IRL with only 2 ears?
Read up on how it works: Head-related transfer function - Wikipedia
DT770 is a great set of cans, DT 990 pro is better for gaming (and overall) being open-back, there are others in the same class.
e.g The 6 Best Gaming Headsets of 2025 - RTINGS.com
But it’s absolutely worth investing a few extra bucks for better quality headset that will last you years across many PCs and devices and used daily.
Again its literally all software, and notice how I said most, just use any modern surround sound setting the actual pair of headphones doesn’t matter beyond the audio quality. Worrying about exactly perfect surround sound settings is going to be placebo more often then not, basically all modern game engines have good enough spatial audio.
Fact is you wont be able to tell the difference between something behind you and something 15 degrees off to your left behind you anyways, and vertical spatial audio practically never comes up. I played CSGO at a pretty high level for like 6 years and always had the best hearing on any team because I just had good headphones, I have messed with spatial audio sometimes but ultimately you will not notice and it will not impact your gameplay. You want to know if something is behind you or off to your right and audio quality is going to help with that way more then messing with spatial audio settings for 8 hours.
This is only including headphones with microphones. Honestly not worth it, headphone microphones almost always suck and you are 110% better off with a lapel mic for like $30 that will absolutely smash the audio quality of any gaming headphone mic.
This is what I personally use and its easily a hundred times higher quality then anyone I have ever met. The bottle neck will be whatever network you are connecting to not the mic Amazon.com: PowerDeWise Professional Grade Lavalier Clip On Microphone - Lav Mic for Camera Phone iPhone GoPro Video Recording ASMR - Small Noise Cancelling 3.5mm Tiny Shirt Microphone with Easy Clip On System : Musical Instruments
Though windows is also dumb and it will sound very quite if you dont bump the gain, you should use equalizer APO to bump the gain a lot. Honestly equalizer APO is extremely useful and I have no idea what its not built into windows at this point.
If you care enough about that you can also use the noise removing plugin from reaper in there to basically remove any echo or key stroke noise you have. Equalizer APO download | SourceForge.net
DT 990s are great for single player games and music but you will drive your teammates insane with echo because they are open back so do not buy them for multiplayer games. DT 770s are plenty good, yes there are some other options that are similar but the fact you can get a good pair of DT 770s used for about $80 is unbeatable. They are industry standard so they are literally everywhere so they are constantly available and cheap used plus replacement parts are extremely common. There isn’t any other pair of headphones that really competes on every front, the only reason there really is to get anything else is if you find them more comfortable to wear.
You’re confusing and conflating things here and being unclear.
There’s no “worrying about perfect settings” beyond turning it the grut on properly, flipping some settings and maybe trying a few different in-game settings like range because not all HW is created equal. 5-15 minutes is hardly 8 hours .
basically all modern game engines have good enough spatial audio.
You’re mixing things , terminology up and/or conflating them, again.
You DO realize CS:GO is one of the few games that has built-in HRTF right as an option?
8 years ago for CSGO was it, the 3d sound option?
That “placebo/do nothing SW” was built into the game and was quite popular afaik. You seemed to like it and are praising it and your good headphones helped. I mentioned some games doing this previously, this is not standard.
5s google search e.g.
Again, conflating things.
This is then a mic issue picking up sound from the cans, how loud are you playing things too? Run a discord self-test and see for yourself. Unless you’re streaming and/or using one of those desk mics, or an omni-directional mic like you’re using. That mic is intended to pick everything up around it. This is more of a you problem and the mic you chose, not-open back’s fault.
Most headset mics and the popular clip-ons are ~uni-directional, intended for gaming and only picking up things from your mouth (mostly). Some headsets do have very crappy mics, read reviews first and/or return them. Don’t use a headset with a crappy mic!. A quick discord and windows self-test can quickly point out issues. You can also use an external clip-on as mentioned.
Further making matters worse, most people never adjust the mic input thresholds in windows first, making it even worse by being overly sensitive with voice-activation and you can hear every GD click and roaches in the walls. Tweak the mic input levels in Windows first (check any DB boost there), then adjust in Discord (noise suppression) etc. It takes minutes, repeat a couple of times. You don’t even need any additional tweaking in EQ APO.
Hell many crappy closed headsets pickup more sound than they should, discord even has SW switches that can help as do bundled SW, many external devices have this built-in as do USB headsets.
Yeah this was added long after I started playing, I played with it on and off for a few years and really the only map where it did anything was Nuke. A map no one played. And to a lesser extent overpass but that rarely came up. Point is it does practically nothing for gameplay and I ended up just turning it off because it sort of distorts audio in a slightly distracting way.
Again this really goes back to the whole point of needing to know if a enemy is in that general direction not their exact co-ordinates down to the millimeter, fancy spatial audio usually wont help you determine anything more then you could without it, your hearing isn’t that precise to begin with you can only really tell where a sound came from in a roughly ~15 degree cone for sounds that aren’t coming from in front of you. This has been tested in plenty of studies I can link if you really want or you can look it up yourself. Any benefit you get is almost entirely placebo in 90% of cases and realistically will not help you in gameplay. Audio quality is the main important factor.
There are physical limits here, there are no magic spatial audio settings that turn you into a owl. The only thing HRTF really helps with is vertical spatial audio location, and that rarely if ever comes up. Its nice but overall practically useless and not worth messing with in my experience.
The more noise cancelation you add the more it degrades your recording quality. Microphones that have various types of built in spatial audio canceling are nice but also expensive and usually don’t do as much as you would want unless your buying professional quality $400+ microphones that will be on microphone arms. In the case of just getting a good lapel mic or even something like a blue yeti or any entry level microphone having open backed headphones is going to cause noise and you are going to need to add more noise canceling and that is going to degrade recording quality.
Overall you can do it if you want, but frankly the audio quality from DT 990s is practically entirely wasted on video games, and its not really worth the added effort. Ask the average person to wear both and play a game of darktide with them or whatever and they probably wont be able to tell the difference. Unless you are also a massive audiophile and constantly critically listen to music.
I literally record music, I have a several thousand dollar guitar collection and plenty of mics and headphones from various brands, I have been messing with spatial audio settings for over 12 years at this point basically since I started playing CSGO, I mean I own a $400 DAC, your not going to tell me anything I don’t already know. I literally watched that video when it came out.
Thats nice and all but why bother doing it on discord? Doing it in Equalizer APO applies to your entire computer so that includes ever in game voice chat and also discord, also you don’t need to worry about discord updates breaking your settings. Also Equalizer APO is just generally better and has a infinite number of plugins, discord options are pretty limited.
This is demonstrably untrue.
Audio quality is absolutely a big important part of it and should be the first thing ppl look for, but it’s not the only piece. Is it a panacea? No, and can be made altered by other factors like crappy headphones, open vs closed, but it can be a big boon to the gaming experience.
Fun fact; owls have differently spaced ears on the VERTICAL, possibly some humans may have this too but I think it’s not our strong suit
Fun Fact 2: Valorant also had built-in HRTF as an option for its users.
And yet you keep mixing up and conflating things, it seems like somethings didn’t register properly all these years.
Yeah average Joe won’t need all that stuff vs the simple Discord+win stuff.
But again, an interesting and popular plugin is HeSuVi HRTF for EQ APO, and that can benefit very gamer unless they already have a similar solution already set up (trivial).
I’m looking at all this from a gamer who appreciates good sound, and good directional sound, not a music audiophile who swears they can hear the difference between a 20$ cable and a 400$ one.
Yup turned it off in valorant as well. Look standard spatial audio is more then enough, again the problem you are trying to solve is being able to tell if there is a enemy, how far away they are, and their general location. You don’t need to know, nor is your brain capable of distinguishing things down to the precision that HRTF claims to offer. At most you need to know if a enemy is roughly in one of the main 8 directions, precision beyond that is pratically useless especially in a fast paced action game like darktide.
Again your brain is only capable of distinguishing things down to around +/-15 degrees, standard headphone options in any game are perfectly capable of doing that.
I havent mixed up anything. You are claiming I am conflating things or whatever, when my core argument is literally just that human ears cant distinguish things that accurately in terms of direction anyways. All that really matters is audio quality. Now can some spatial audio settings help in some cases sometimes? Maybe. Is it worth the effort? Not really. If you want to do it knock yourself out, but telling people that they need to do something for good spatial audio that is paramout to placebo is dumb.
Okay so you understand that a lot of audio stuff is just placebo and ultimately doesn’t do much? Yeah same here, thats why I have DT 770s and DT 990s not HD 800s for $2000 for 20% more accurate response in frequencies I cant even hear.
But I guess you are just stuck on the placebo of spatial audio. Sure its not entierly placebo, maybe it helps in some scenarios but its the same thing as those $2000 headphones, are you actually going to notice? Is it going to impact your gameplay in any way? No it just wont, I have been down this road 100 times, I just stopped caring after a windows update broke my spatial audio settings for who knows how long and I didn’t notice at all probably for months. And that is in the context of fairly high level CSGO, if I didn’t notice there do you really think you will notice at all in darktide?
What do YOU think “standard spatial audio” means? What does it mean to you?
Do you mean default 2.0 sound from games? Stop calling it “standard spatial audio”, it’s not; this is part of the conflating.
The standard SW fall back stereo stuff is not the same as binaural(HRTF) sound (which I think may color the sound in ways you dislike, needed for positioning afaik).
You can’t really call the default CS:GO headphone “spatial” when compared to its HP+HRTF option, the latter does extra stuff to the sound you know, HRTF stuff.
Is it ever going to be perfect like hearing things in the wild? No OFC not, but for locating sounds vs the vanilla sw stuff it can be a big boon barring aforementioned things, and individual things like head sizes, ear shapes etc.
What effort? Installing SW and flipping some windows+game settings? That’s too much now? But you wan ppl to fiddle with more EQ APO for mics?
Broke what exactly? Where, in what context? You keep using the “spatial audio” term but you seem to be using it for everything so it’s unclear what you’re trying to say and you’re just creating confusion, maybe because you’re confused, IDK
Are you referring to HRTF?
DT doesn’t have a a built-in HRTF+headphone output like CS:GO did, I even linked the dev quote confirming. So what didn’t you notice in DT exactly? Something non-existent?
I’m gonna go have a coffee and eat, this is tiring and I think it’s mostly all been said; I give up.
P.S. A very interesting 4 year old Reddit AMA from Valorant Sound Dev regarding HRTF, which BTW also uses WWISE (like DT), but they are using a 3d party the HRTF plugin as I mentioned before.
There’s a lot of good info here, some more nuanced stuff I saw just skimming and beyond the scope of this thread or me.
Bonus point if you see dev take on accessibility “sound radar”.
P.P.S. Worth reminding ppl, don’t double up on stuff, if a game like CSGO or Valorant is doing the HRTF, turn it off outside the game’ don’t double up.
I’m just saying that wont impact your gameplay in any noticeable way. Noise canceling and proper gain on a microphone is very noticeable compared to what like 10% more accurate sound directionality? It is a question of if you will even notice the difference not really how hard it is to do.
I already know this discussion, sound radar was a massive controversial thing in CSGO, not sure if it ended up sticking around or not but I remember people very clearly saying that it is massively over powered and way better then any spatial audio… You know because human ears aren’t that precise when it comes to audio directionality.
I think some of your arguments are a little confused because your arguing against things I didn’t say (did I imply darktide had HRTF?). Ill just leave it at this:
Human ears are less precise then any spatial audio settings you have. If the game has anything as basic as a headphones setting that is already enough by itself. You can already tell the general direction that enemies are and that is all you need. You aren’t a owl, you wont be able to play the game blind folded
Shouldn’t you be able to just tell? Shouldn’t this just be a simple test? Why do you need to ask the devs if something is supported or not? Maybe its because you cant actually tell the difference and it has no impact on your gameplay at all?
I noticed you didn’t clarify. Still waiting for you to define what you think “standard spatial audio” means, and how windows update broke something that may or may not be related etc.
Asked because:
To clear it up for people that asked and weren’t sure.
To confirm (eliminating placebo) that HRTF (NOT Windows Spatial) wasn’t on via a plugin like Valorant by default, for those of not 99% sure, and not double up on a solution. And to confirm that the new Windows Spatial Sound is working properly for others , IF it’s implemented(doesn’t appear to be, I don’t use this because of GSX 1000’s virtual 7.1 speakers).
And the part you’re glossing over and don’t seem to understand, does the game use Windows Spatial Sound (audio), which needs to be turned on in Windows for example. This way they can also try better 3rd party paid solutions for Windows Spatial Audio like the Dolby or DTS solutions knowing 100% it’s supported.
So other users can get definite guidance and see for themselves, and yes you can tell currently, feel free to correct me.
I feel like this should all have been clear to you instead of trying to turn it into a gotcha.
We both agree, we’re not owls. We also thankfully both agree that a sound radar is far more precise “massively over powered and way better then [sic] any spatial audio” as you put it, because duh.
Nobody is saying humans have perfect pinpoint 3d hearing that can be emulated perfectly, I certainly didn’t. The whole point is to improve things, not turn you into an owl.
You argue it’s only 10% which it’s not, and even that 10% means it’s not a placebo as you claimed. Maybe it’s 10% for you due to HP choice, head size and earshape, IDK? Possibly. I’ve seen ppl argue sound radar doesn’t help them, I believe them, it sounds like a them issue.
You also keep trying to make it an either/or situation. Yes again, I agree with you a decent quality headset is very important, it doesn’t stop you from enhancing things after the fact.
Why do you use EQ APO to tweak your mic? Shouldn’t your awesome mic be enough? You should not use EQ AP, because apparently you can’t have both.
Do you use your GPU with only default settings across the board? Why? We’re not eagles, or something. I demand you never use DLSS.
Oh right, you can do SW stuff after you have your HW.
Also just to get it out of the way I have literally used everything you have mentioned before. I own a GSX 1000, I just gave up on it because a lot of modern Sennheiser seems to suck, the Sennheiser headphones I have with it are pretty garbage. I did use the surround sound for a bit when playing CSGO and never noticed any noticeable difference.
GSX 1000 rant
GSX 1000 and GSP 600 are such garbage for the price point its honestly appalling, the audio quality is fine similar ish to DT 770s in some regards, but the build quality is so bad, cheap plastic everything and a stupid design that rips your hair out even if the massive gaps in the plastic panels don’t. Plus the weight and cheap headband rough enough to almost give me a bald spot, and the mic that’s beat by a $30 lapel mic. Literally the headphones that made me skeptical of Rtings and anything labeled as “gaming”.
The dac is fine but doesn’t actually give much power, I guess that’s fine since GSP 600s are 32 ohm. But since the DAC isn’t really all that good and the low OHM rating makes its sound pretty muddy half the time. Maybe I got a bad quality control batch I don’t know, but I replaced both twice on warranty so I guess I must be very unlucky.
Rtings is a completely different rant but it does annoy me how their tests don’t actually consider what frequency ranges sounds actually are. They give a very poor score for DT 770’s treble response due to a dips at frequencies that nothing actually exists in, specifically 3.5k nothing really exists there and then criticize the fact that they boost high treble, something that is generally desirable in most music and usually doesn’t effect anything else, maybe I am just dumb because I also play drums but I love it and basically every music related person I have ever met likes it
If you want to mess around with this stuff go ahead. But again even if its like 20% or even 50% hell 100000000% better spatial audio. It doesn’t matter it does nothing due to the limitations of human hearing, any decent game with any form of stereo sound is probably going to be more accurate then your ears in most scenarios that matter anyways. I just take issue with people being too elitist and specific about surround sound, fact is it doesn’t make any noticeable difference and I came to this conclusion over 12 years and hundreds of dollars sunk.
Because my mic is $30, but with a little bit of equalizer APO use it sounds like a $200 mic. I think that is enough value to bother with.
Hmm not use a single button that doubles your frame rate? Again value VS effort. Enabling any of those new boosting tools helps massively and notably improves frame rates. You can immediately tell the difference. Meanwhile I could disable all of your spatial audio stuff and you wouldn’t notice for weeks if ever, hell you probably cant even tell if its working or not, I remember you needing to do a fair amount of configuration stuff to make 7.1 work with the GSX 1000 and it only worked with 16 bit 48,000hz. But hey I guess 7.1 is more important then a decent sample rate and bit depth (not that it really matters for game sound effects usually but still funny. Just shows how its “gamer” and not “studio”)
Hmm
20-50% more accurate positioning is meaningless now !? Oh I gues becasue you consider the base line zero?
Why do you keep talking about limitation in human hearing like it’s an issue here? Nobody is said you should be able to hear a virtual pin drop behind a wall or anything, any limitations to human hearing or tech is irrelevant and doesn’t come into play, there doesn’t appear to be a point you’re trying to make. What’s limited in relation to software HRTF exactly?
Sounds like a you problem quite frankly.
Furthermore it really sounds like you’re either mis-configuring stuff, misunderstanding stuff or both.
You still haven’t answer my questions re: your idea of what “default spatial *” means in your head, purposely it seems.
No no, it looks crappy on my 12 yr old 1080p 60hz TN LCD and doesn’t help. It does nothing, pure placebo. FXAA 4EVA!
You mean plugging the USB cable to it and your PC? That was a lot? Or was it opening up the windows sound control panel that was too much? I don’t know where you’re finding these complications but they sound specific to you. GSX 1000 setup could not be simpler, here’s the setup vid guide. The setup part is is around 3 minutes and includes TS config for the comm device.
Yeah they mention this, it’s not a secret. IIRC it’s a USB audio spec limitation, 7.1 16/48. It’s a non-issue and 24/96 for 2.0 is still there if you want it.
Oh lawdy, and you were accusing ME of being an audiophile purist or hearing things that aren’t there thinking I’m hearing it?
Now you’re gonna tell you can 24/96 vs 16/48 is more noticeable than HRTF on/off in games? And I’m the one with a placebo? What was that about 20$ vs 300$ cables you agreed to? I bet 99% of people wouldn’t be able to notice 24/96 over 16/48, certainly not for games.
Here, found this for you, a 10 yr kid old asking and engi and explaining things.
P.S. You should tell MS, Google, Apple, Meta Sennheiser etc. to stop wasting their money on sugar pills.
P.P.S.
LOL I guess there’s a backstory hear, first time I hear someone say “elitist” re: 3d sound, and the whole 24/96 is chef’s kiss.
“nooo 3d sound makes no difference! But also try 24/96”