Sound in ED

Midian Cabal

Midian Cabal
I hope we can all agree that the sound engineers did (and are still doing) an amazing job in ED.

I'm curious to hear from you how important is sound for you in ED?
How do you produce and consume it?
Just using your motherboard or have you maybe invested in another sound card, internal or external?
Do you have some cheap PC speakers or are you a total Hi-Fi freak that has invested thousands of your local currency in your acoustic system and plays ED through it?
Maybe the same, but with headphones and external amp?

Does anyone have experience with Sennheiser GSX 1000?
 

777Driver

777Driver
Tactile transducer for feedback, high end surround sound speakers, everything turned up extremely loud, with plenty of low end. The game deserves no less. I record at home, when I picked my house in the UK it had to have a separate area where I can make as much noise as possible without disturbing anyone.
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I bang on a lot about loving VR, sound immersion is 1000x more important to me, it really makes the game come alive when connected to a good sound system.

The sound team surpassed my expectations by a huge amount.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
777Driver said:
The sound team surpassed my expectations by a huge amount.
Click to expand...

Indeed, and the amount of audio details you can get when playing on a good enough setup is simply amazing, they just did a flawless work.

I'm no hi-fi monkey enthusiast and have no particularly high-end gear either. I drive audio through an oldie-but-goldie Creative X-Fi Gamer that surely is still head and shoulders above the embedded fluff of the mainboard, and I hear it through either an even older Logitech X-230 2.1 setup, when I need to be aware of my RL surroundings or I need sound to be loud and boomy, or a pair of Bose Soundsport earbuds when I want to feel more immersed and catch more details, preferably without disturbing people nearby.

It's simply amazing to notice how much detail in the audio gets lost when playing on speakers compared to playing on earphones, whatever I lose in pure booming bass, I more than make up with the sheer amount of additional stuff that I get to hear in the Bose.

I made this little clip a couple weeks ago just to illustrate this to some friends:

Played on speakers, I can still appreciate the amazing sound engineering, the loud exit from SC, the radio chatter, some of the ship's noises, and the discreet background of the Blue Danube.
With the earbuds, on the other hand, I can hear all the radio chatter around, a lot more additional informations from traffic control, every little whining and creaking of my ship, and a glorious waltzer reverberating through the cavernous cabin of the T9. It's an entirely different experience, for the better.

And they're just a pair of sport earbuds, even if a bit on the higher end of the market!

I'd like to have a good headset one day, and I mean good, but I've yet to find one that gets along well with glasses on the long run. The pain gets real after some time.
 

Dutchman141

Dutchman141
The sound in ED is one thing done very good, if only the whole game had that degree of quality.

I'm using a Sennheiser something something headphones and it sounds amazing.
You hear so much more detail when using headphones, even compared to a good surround set.
 

Midian Cabal

Midian Cabal
AkenBosch said:
Indeed, and the amount of audio details you can get when playing on a good enough setup is simply amazing, they just did a flawless work.

I'm no hi-fi monkey enthusiast and have no particularly high-end gear either. I drive audio through an oldie-but-goldie Creative X-Fi Gamer that surely is still head and shoulders above the embedded fluff of the mainboard, and I hear it through either an even older Logitech X-230 2.1 setup, when I need to be aware of my RL surroundings or I need sound to be loud and boomy, or a pair of Bose Soundsport earbuds when I want to feel more immersed and catch more details, preferably without disturbing people nearby.

It's simply amazing to notice how much detail in the audio gets lost when playing on speakers compared to playing on earphones, whatever I lose in pure booming bass, I more than make up with the sheer amount of additional stuff that I get to hear in the Bose.

I made this little clip a couple weeks ago just to illustrate this to some friends:

Played on speakers, I can still appreciate the amazing sound engineering, the loud exit from SC, the radio chatter, some of the ship's noises, and the discreet background of the Blue Danube.
With the earbuds, on the other hand, I can hear all the radio chatter around, a lot more additional informations from traffic control, every little whining and creaking of my ship, and a glorious waltzer reverberating through the cavernous cabin of the T9. It's an entirely different experience, for the better.

And they're just a pair of sport earbuds, even if a bit on the higher end of the market!

I'd like to have a good headset one day, and I mean good, but I've yet to find one that gets along well with glasses on the long run. The pain gets real after some time.
Click to expand...
Have you tried some on-ear headphones, like AKG N60NC? I don't wear glasses myself, but I imagine they don't clamp so strong as over-ear headphones.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Actually I had a pair of on-ear headphones until a little more than a month ago, a pair of 5.1 Roccat Kave I've had for several years. Sounded good and were awesome for gaming, but after a while the push of the glasses' frame against the ears and temporal bones got very noticeable, to the point of being painful. Also in my case, having a high degree of view correction due to severe myopia, the push of headphones tends to move my glasses around a bit, and with that my view also. It's rather unpleasant, trust me. 😅

These were the main reasons why I opted to take advantage of a very good offer on the Soundsports (49 € from their original 99-129 €) and handed over the Roccat to my fiancee. They look hilariously huge on her tiny head, but she hardly plays without them now. :LOL:

I'm sure there are the right ones for me somewhere, I'll find them eventually.
 

Midian Cabal

Midian Cabal
AkenBosch said:
Actually I had a pair of on-ear headphones until a little more than a month ago, a pair of 5.1 Roccat Kave I've had for several years. Sounded good and were awesome for gaming, but after a while the push of the glasses' frame against the ears and temporal bones got very noticeable, to the point of being painful. Also in my case, having a high degree of view correction due to severe myopia, the push of headphones tends to move my glasses around a bit, and with that my view also. It's rather unpleasant, trust me. 😅

These were the main reasons why I opted to take advantage of a very good offer on the Soundsports (49 € from their original 99-129 €) and handed over the Roccat to my fiancee. They look hilariously huge on her tiny head, but she hardly plays without them now. :LOL:

I'm sure there are the right ones for me somewhere, I'll find them eventually.
Click to expand...
Have you considered completely different approach then: contact lenses? They were suggested to me by my ophtalmologist when I was a kid for my progressing myopia and I'm really happy with them ever since.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Yep, went down that road already! Truth be told, it's been 10 years ago or more, and back at the time no one made daily lenses for my vision defect, so I had to buy monthly ones. Not only they made eadphones practical, they were also a godsend for driving, sport, visual astronomy, etc (and also allowed me to see my actual uncluttered face in a mirror for the first time in 20 years, imagine the shock! :D)...but in the end they still required scrupolous maintenance and a somewhat troublesome procedure to wear them, not mentioning the costs, so I stopped using them over time. I should try again now that they also make dailies for me.

And yes, I have a counter-argoment for almost any proposal :p, the perfect eadphones for me are there, just beyond that "almost".

Returning in topic: this evening I left the comforts of my usual Chief and T9 and hopped back in the cramped cabin of a Sidewinder. For the first time since I have the Bose earphones. Boy, oh boy, the glorious whine of that space coffin!
 

nosleepdemon

nosleepdemon
I use a pair of equalized BD 990s. They really could do with a bit of amplification though as my PC is scarecely able to power those 250 ohm drivers. I have them equalized using HeSuVi to bring down the overbearing treble, they are as neutral as possible as I use them to mix and master music.

Elite has by far the best sound design I have ever heard in any game or film, it's phenomenal and I am really happy that for once, a game studio has not overlooked the importance of audio.
 

Cliché

Cliché
When I first saw a user video of ED 5 years ago, specifically hearing the engine sound of a Sidewinder, I new I had to have it. I hadn't gamed for years, but within a week I had built a new gaming computer was was playing the premium beta.

I have a Sennheiser PC363D headset and their Game1 3D "sound card". I think they sound pretty great.
 

PhanttoM

PhanttoM
Just a Logitech G35 headset. It's fine.
Sometimes the speakers on my TV/monitor, when listening to podcasts instead of the game audio.

Elite is one of only 3 games I think about when it comes to excellent sound design in video games. The others being Freespace 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 on "war tapes" audio quality settings.
 

madmattnz

madmattnz
Yes I agree the sound is amazing and creates a lot of ‘emmersion’ (said like Yamiks!) for me.

I am on PS4 and mostly use headphones – much better for the detail
Soundcard: n/a PS4
Headphones: SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless Gaming Headset
System: Sony HT-IS100 5.1 Home Theatre
 

VR - wickfut

VR - wickfut
I use the Odyssey+ headset audio in VR or my studio monitor system which is a pair of PSI A25-m midfield monitors connected to a Dangerous Source DAC/Monitor controller. (my gaming rig is also a DAW in my home studio)

Sound is definitely amazing. Is there any way to swap out the music to your own tracks?
 

Midian Cabal

Midian Cabal
wickfut said:
I use the Odyssey+ headset audio in VR or my studio monitor system which is a pair of PSI A25-m midfield monitors connected to a Dangerous Source DAC/Monitor controller. (my gaming rig is also a DAW in my home studio)

Sound is definitely amazing. Is there any way to swap out the music to your own tracks?
Click to expand...
The simplest solution is muting the in-game music and playing your own. Works for me. :)
 

Riverside

Riverside
I use the onboard Realtek sound but I added a second pair of speakers to get surround (I had the speakers spare so it was a free experiment). I really liked it so I bought a set of Logitech 5.1 surround speakers that I still use. The surround effect is really useful but I haven't played any other modern games I could compare the quality to.

My hearing isn't all that great so most of the information in the noises pass me by but I get a decent feel for direction from it. The stand out noise for me is the tinkle of weapons hitting the targeted enemy, I find it an excellent guide for knowing when my multi-cannons are on target & when they aren't, or at long range when my fixed beam is hitting home on some dot of an eagle 6km away. Most of the time all I notice in a CZ is that tinkling and the occasional Anaconda's rumble if it's nearby.

I have the in-game setting on 'boost', I used to use 'night' but some previous update screwed up the volume levels on 'night' and I found 'boost' came close so I've just left it there.

But the other day I updated my sound drivers to the latest win10 1903 compatible version and initially couldn't find the new sound manager - the equaliser software. I used to have it on 'powerful' to improve top & bottom end and with the new drivers I played ED for a session with just the default & the whole game sounded like it was underwater. Fortunately I got the equaliser working with the new drivers & it was back to what I was used to again.

So I think the 3D soundscape is great, I would struggle to be as good in combat with the sound muted so I do rely on it but a bit more levelling would be handy so I don't have to turn it up so loud. Probably more of a 'me' problem than a 'game' problem ;)
 

Phazon Xenomorph

Phazon Xenomorph
I dislike most of what this game has become....

But the sound design... only one other game really immersed me in sound and that was Alien Isolation. Elite has some serious top-notch sound design that I can't help but praise endlessly and really captures the feeling of spots in the game. From an on fire station, to sitting AFK on a surface site or engineer base, to sitting at Barnacles or Thargoid sites, radio traffic sounds... it's all REALLY well on done Elite.

And I'm on Sennheiser HD598 headphones with a Sound Blaster Z (once I upgrade my computer I plan to use the new AE-5 though for all the new tech).
 
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