Here’s something I’ve never understood.
There is an obsession with gaming headsets for playing FPS games to give you a competitive edge - helping you pinpoint footsteps and other sounds to figure out where your opponents are. This, I assume, comes purely down to how well the headset can recreate the stereo image.
Which is weird to me because headphones are known to be quite misleading re: the stereo image! As a producer, I would never 100% trust mixes on headphones and would need to check the imaging on studio monitors. If they are calibrated with something like Sonarworks, Dirac or Genelec GLM, the precision of the stereo imaging is second to none.
So for the sake of argument, is it true that calibrated studio monitors actually give you more of a competitive edge than headphones? Or is there something that I’m missing?
Most games dont have multi channel audio… but use software to create the sound environment so true surround doesnt get used to its full ability, and often can lead to a negative sound experience. stereo headsets on the other hand create the surround scape as the devs intend… I once paid out for a true 7.1 headset thinking it would enhance my gaming experience… cost me over £200, with movies it was crazy accurate, I remember watching Saving Private Ryan and physically dodging the sound of bullets… but i found games to quite often have issues making it difficult to identify front and rear sounds, left and right was ok… but the same game with stereo headset the front and rear became more defined somehow… later i came to understand it was down to the software coding.