New Tiamat 7.1 sounds "tinny"

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Pylor

Limp Gawd
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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
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Just got my new pair of Tiamat 7.1s (yes, I know most people say that the artificial surround is better but I've always preferred having the drivers in the headphones), and they sound, well, bad. I don't know how to describe it but everything just sounds hollow. They're set to 7.1 and music in general sounds "ok" but in game sounds just sound very harsh and hollow.

I'm using an X-fi titanium pcie card and it's always been great with all the other headphones I've used. If there's a setting I can change to help (going to be trying the PAX modded drivers sometime) that'd be great.
 
For music or games? It should sound ok for games and pretty horrible for music. I saw another comment that it sounded pretty awful with 7.1 enabled. Does it go real flat and not have much bass or what?
 
There's not much bass at all, turning up the subwoofer doesn't really help much because the other speakers still sound very sharp. It's hard to describe but there's just not a lot of "fullness" to the sound (I'm not an audiophile so I don't know the correct language, sorry).; It just sounds very flat.

Pretty disappointed, the turtle beach Z6A this replaced sounded great, too bad the quality control on those and the longevity of the product is so awful.

Music actually sounds ok, even in 7.1 surround, but playing WoW with vent running just sounds very dull. Seems strange to me because all the reviews claim it sounds "ok" at least, but it just sounds awful to me.
 
I think it just might be the headphones this time. I would rma them or return them if you could. The complaint I saw was pretty much exactly what you said. So there might be an issue with the design. I never did find a good multi driver solution for headphones. My 5.1 speakers work great compared to my stereo headphones but the headphones wax any multi driver headset I ever had. The old Medusas were pretty good but still..

You might just be happy with a good stereo headset like the corsair or the $100 stereo version of the tiamat.
 
Probably has something to do with them cramming a bunch of little drivers into the earcup instead of just one big driver. There's a reason why people say artificial surround is better - because stereo headphones are better.
 
Pylor said:
Just got my new pair of Tiamat 7.1s (yes, I know most people say that the artificial surround is better but I've always preferred having the drivers in the headphones), and they sound, well, bad. I don't know how to describe it but everything just sounds hollow. They're set to 7.1 and music in general sounds "ok" but in game sounds just sound very harsh and hollow.

I'm using an X-fi titanium pcie card and it's always been great with all the other headphones I've used. If there's a setting I can change to help (going to be trying the PAX modded drivers sometime) that'd be great.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that is likely what you are going to get with the "7.1" headphones. When they stick a bunch of small, cheap driers in there it does not have the sound quality you get from normal phones in the same price class.

A better option, I feel, is to use CMMS 3D on your soundcard with regular phones. It handles the HRTF to give you a virtual surround space. It's not perfect because it lacks head tracking, but then so do your phones.

If you want real 7.1, well then you have to go and get 8 real speakers. Just how it goes.
 
If you were on d2jsp posting this, I am fairly certain that you would have been flamed.

I concur with what that was stated via Forceman and Sycraft.
 
I should mention this is only with certain programs, such as WoW. Playing youtube videos in firefox sounds great, better than any other pair of headphones I've had. Some of them just don't seem to properly follow the bass redirection setting in the creative launcher.

Edit: Going into the somewhat obscure THX panel for the card and going to the bass section and changing the speaker's size to small seems to have helped a LOT.
 
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