www.zapwizard.com

Dolby Digital Quadraphonic

Surround Sound Sound Headphones

Created by: ZapWizard

I love surround sound, and have made my self expert in it.

I play my video games with four speakers, two in front and two behind.

They connect to my sound blaster live and I can tell where anyone in the game is located if they make a sound.

Well at night, as not to wake anyone, I used headphones, but I sucked when I didn't have that edge that surround sound gave me.

So I decided to make a pair of headphones that could duplicate the effect of four speakers.

DISCLAIMER: The information provided here is not for commercial use.

Update: I just found the service manual to these headphones, it may help you: Click here

If that Link doesn't work the original is Here

Well in time all works out.

I acquired these AKG headphones, while I was working at RadioShack.

They were broken, but a little solder fixed that.

They had four speakers, two in each ear. Each speaker pair was offset 45 degree's above and below your ears.

I took them apart, rotated them 90 degree's and remounted them.

I wired the front two speakers for Front Stereo, and the rear two for Rear Stereo.

I connected them up to my Live and was blown away by the effect, I could tell exactly where someone was instantly.

It works well enough in Halflife or CounterStrike, as to simply shoot through the wall when they made a sound.

(I got booted a lot for cheating though)

The sound quality of the stock speakers in the headphones wasn't as good as I would like.

So I decided to replace them with my own favorite speakers.

These are speakers from a pair of Koss Pro-35's.

The diaphragms are made of titanium, and you will never hear a better headphone in your life

Check out my rant on them at: http://www.epinions.com/content_20125093508

Also having the speakers on a single plane, instead of 45degree's offset really expanded the separation between front sounds and rear sounds

(Your results may vary)

Then I got interested in real movie surround sound

So I decided to adapt my headphones to play from a DVD player.

I got a Cirrus Logic Dolby Digital Development Board, from a engineer there I knew.

(No I can't get you any)

Then I went to work as how to mix the surround sound down to four channels.

I really only had 5 channels to mix, I tried mixing in the Subwoofer LFE channel, but that much bass in your head from four different directions is nauseating. There are different ways of doing this, the most common being that you invert the phase (Flip the positive and negative wires of the rear speakers). This creates a virtual space between the front a rear channels, but also kills any rear stereo effect.

I created my own method of mixing the surround sound into four channels.

(I will not disclose it as I am trying to patent it)

In effect, you get a very real theater sound (Better sound then most theaters)

It feels like your on the set, and you can hear many details that you never hear in the theatre.

Here is the mixing box.

It's fun to turn down the front speakers and just listen to the rears, there is often sounds from the crew or director that the mixer's didn't catch.

I plan on replacing this box with an all digital mixer