Psyko Audio Releases 2 New Headsets

[phantomferrari]

http://www.psykoaudio.com/

Psyko Audio Labs announces the next evolution in their gaming headset line with two new products – Psyko Carbon and Psyko Krypton. Both new products are based on Psyko’s patent pending PsykoWaveTM technology, the same technology used in the multiple award winning Psyko 5.1 Gaming Headset.

Psyko Carbon is a product advancement and includes premier components and materials for a superior level of audio, design and finish.
Psyko Krypton will replace the Psyko 5.1 product and incorporates a number of market based improvements over the original product.

Both models deliver the most realistic and accurate directional audio ever and are designed specifically for gaming. Win more and feel more of the game. Psyko Wave technology improves your situational awareness, reaction time, game performance and game immersion.

i heard that their audio quality wasnt that great on the original and it looks like their higher end model (carbon) addresses that. might be interesting

[Gamekiller]

Neat concept. Some of the features seem nice. Though, they (the carbon version, not sure about the other) look like they sit on top of the ear instead of around them which I don't really like.
I thought the open-able vent was a pretty cool thing I've never seen.

[HotGore]

Yeah the audio quality on the original wasn't that great, but the positional audio was fantastic. The main issue I found with it though was the weight, it was heavy as heck. Looks like they finally fixed it with the carbon!

Note: Strangely I am wearing my Psyko Audio Labs t-shirt I got with my headset. :\

[phantomferrari]

Neat concept. Some of the features seem nice. Though, they (the carbon version, not sure about the other) look like they sit on top of the ear instead of around them which I don't really like.
I thought the open-able vent was a pretty cool thing I've never seen.

yeah, it does looks like the carbon sits on the ear instead of over the ear. one would think the more expensive model would have over the ear to drown out more noise and allow slightly better audio quality

[STEvil]

speakers on top of your head? junk.

[Johnny87au]

lol rubbish imo, ill stick with my audio technicas

[Jamesrt2004]

Gaming headsets always suck. Decent normal headphones and a £5 microphone is much better!

[Johnny87au]

i found that the zalman gaming headphones were amazing, now i just stick to expensive 2.0 headphones..

[ClockZ]

lol rubbish imo, ill stick with my audio technicas

My AT's are the best headphones I ever bought for gaming, love them. These things with the speakers over the head well.........no thanks.

[SubZero.it]

Would never change my AD700 for these

[Jaivan]

speakers on top of your head? junk.

Now these are head speakers:


Those are just junk

[prava]

You have to be stupid to believe you need more than two speakers in a headset to have perfect positional audio

They propaganda just makes me sick: they show a head and 5 speakers around, but they fail to realise that with speakers you only hear with the ear you need to, and thus one speaker per ear gives you as good positional audio as you could ever get.

But hey, if they are able to sell this kinda of rubbish-junk...it means their marketing is as good as it gets. Kudos to people that believes in it

[Kallenator]

prava, agreed. It's super silly if one just stops for a moment and think about it. ^^

I still have my Sennheiser PC150, don't think I am ever going to change them out, probably had em for 8 years, albeit 2 pairs as one of em gave in after meeting the floor a few to many times

[Mech0z]

My Sennheiesr HD555 are awesome

[Frontl1ne]

You guys need to listen to some Beyer DT990s

[saaya]

Speakers on top of your head? Now that's weird lol...

[Aleki]

it surprizes me how many people believe they will achieve a greater aural experience with more speakers in headphones, than you have ears.
Virtual surround FTW!

[STEvil]

Now these are head speakers:


Those are just junk

I'd buy those, they're not on top of your head :p

You have to be stupid to believe you need more than two speakers in a headset to have perfect positional audio

They propaganda just makes me sick: they show a head and 5 speakers around, but they fail to realise that with speakers you only hear with the ear you need to, and thus one speaker per ear gives you as good positional audio as you could ever get.

But hey, if they are able to sell this kinda of rubbish-junk...it means their marketing is as good as it gets. Kudos to people that believes in it

You do need more than 2 actually, but 2 suffices very well for most people as long as you are attuned to the way the audio portion of your game works.

If anyone ever bothered to make a real quality set of 4 or more speaker headphones and used an audio engine/codec built for them there would be no comparison to current audio capabilities.

[saaya]

it surprizes me how many people believe they will achieve a greater aural experience with more speakers in headphones, than you have ears.
Virtual surround FTW!

Ever tried it? It does help...
Our ears aren't simple microphones, give nature some credit, will ya
Our ears are pretty sophisticated. Just hold one of your ears shut and close your eyes... you'll still be able to pinpoint the location sounds come from

[STEvil]

Ever tried it? It does help...
Our ears aren't simple microphones, give nature some credit, will ya
Our ears are pretty sophisticated. Just hold one of your ears shut and close your eyes... you'll still be able to pinpoint the location sounds come from

thats a bit different than how a speaker works, which is a simple coil (keeping it simple..) pushing on a diaphragm in and out, any movement to the sides is distortion. There are a lot of tricks to induce "directionality" but thats all they are.

[th3pwn3r]

Yea, definite garbage.

The price is what really makes you LOL after looking at them.

[prava]

You do need more than 2 actually, but 2 suffices very well for most people as long as you are attuned to the way the audio portion of your game works.

If anyone ever bothered to make a real quality set of 4 or more speaker headphones and used an audio engine/codec built for them there would be no comparison to current audio capabilities.

How? The way I understand audio works is that you locate stuff by comparing what you get from one ear to the other. As with speakers you control exactly what you get from each, you can create whatever: you manipulate the timing between songs, frequency and other stuff so you "fool" the brain into thinking whatever you want to.

Its obvious you can't do this with speakers because both ears here all the speakers, so whatever is heard at left speaker will be understood as left sound (because...well, it comes from the left ) and you can't fool the brain because both ears do hear the same.

Am I missing something?

Our ears are pretty sophisticated. Just hold one of your ears shut and close your eyes... you'll still be able to pinpoint the location sounds come from

Thats totally false, mate. A friends girlfriend is half-deaf (only one of his ears work) and he can't locate ANYTHING. She better remember where she left her phone otherwise you will have to locate it for her if she can't see it.
Yes, she can feel the power intensity, but not the location. So, if she knew the song good enough she could know the distance between her and the object but not its location.

So, no, you need both ears, as you locate stuff comparing one ear to the other one (such as you do with your sight to know how deep objects are located: its funny but try to find an object you don't know precisely its size and close one of your eyes. Now, put that object in front of you and good luck picking it up ). Differences in time between one ear to the other, frequency and other stuff is used to locate , but your ears don't see the sound so no, with one you are hopeless.

[brinox]

positional audition happens primarily by signal comparison between what is received in each inner ear through the ear canal AND the pinna. when you block the ear canal, you still receive a significant amount of feedback from the pinna, hence why non-deaf people claim that positional awareness can happen when the canal is blocked .

also, a true set of headphones would have speakers in front of the ear, located perpendicular to your sideburns. our auditory system works best when the sound is coming from in front of us, directly. this is why you orient your head in the direction to where the sound is coming from (usually unknowingly), because thats how the pinna picks up the majority of the sound, given its shape.

With a set of cans on the side, the source audio needs to be compensated for when attempting to achieve positional awareness, and various software technologies have been implemented to achieve this. on top of that, and to keep it simple, our higher-level brain function(s) have grown accustomed to this lack of naturally occurring noise. Specifically, the MGN (wiki link) controls what data goes to your auditory cortex from the inferior colliculus (wiki link). When playing games and attempting to listen and process positional awareness, our brain will ultimately filter out certain sounds and process others differently than when we're out in the real world listening to real 3D audio. This is because we will subconsciously account for the artificial signal coming to our ear depending on what we're consciously attemping, i.e. playing a first person shooter and listening for where that boomer in L4D2 is going to pop out from.. which we usually accomplish by exaggerating the movement of the mouse from left to right in order to greatly simplify the calculations between the sound coming to each ear and actively process the time difference on-the-fly.

enough lecture from brinox; i think these sets of cans *could* be better at positional audition from an artificial source, but i'd need to see what those tubes that the sound travels through is made of and how bad it distorts the original source tones, because that is its biggest hindrance if you ask me. that and whatever the housing material that surrounds the ear is made of is going to affect how that rear speaker exit transmits the audio to the ear.

[STEvil]

How? The way I understand audio works is that you locate stuff by comparing what you get from one ear to the other. As with speakers you control exactly what you get from each, you can create whatever: you manipulate the timing between songs, frequency and other stuff so you "fool" the brain into thinking whatever you want to.

Its obvious you can't do this with speakers because both ears here all the speakers, so whatever is heard at left speaker will be understood as left sound (because...well, it comes from the left ) and you can't fool the brain because both ears do hear the same.

Am I missing something?

Brinox said it well. I'm not saying about left/right positional audio, just forward/back/up/down. Since the diaphragm of the speaker cannot physically movie in any direction except for inwards or outwards there is no way you can have "true" directionality beyond left and right.

To be true you would actually require 4 speakers next to your ear per side.

[RPGWiZaRD]

You can get very accurate 3D positional sound also without 5.1 speaker setup, it's all down to the software processing behind it, I have no trouble locating enemies in the games by sound on my headphones and works even on cheap ones thanks to a nicely working software implementation, I tend to get accused for cheating every now and then only because I keep killing ppl just as they jump around a corner. That's why I haven't really bothered upgrading from an Audigy 2 ZS card because kX Audio drivers are THAT nice.