Home from Pax Prime 2011!

So we just wrapped PAX Prime. It was our rookie season so to speak at the show (as we’ve never been to PAX before as an exhibitor) and I have to say I’m completely blown away by the response from the crowd to the new entries in our product lines.

Of course it never hurts to have some seriously amazing pro-gamers in your booth either. Mike Ross and Peter “ComboFiend” Rosas were in our booth the entire show (when they weren’t jumping out to quickly buy some grub and take a peek at what else was at the show) schooling people in Street Fighter IV AE and Marvel VS. Capcom 3. They showed not only their skill as players, but WHY people admire them so much. They are just great dudes to hang out with. Always willing to help their fans, and completely modest…even while rolling a double perfect match off against a fan in SF4.

E.Honda wants to give you a hiiiii five!

And we’re talking serious talent..like the pic above shows. The ONE loss that is on this streak was when Mike Ross and ComboFiend played each other in one match. They faced off against pro caliber gamers (and of course some regular Joes) from the Seattle area, and despite some close matches they closed out day 2 with a pretty insane streak of wins.

On the product side the Recon3D / Omega (Or the Recon3D Omega as it will be known once it’s released for sale) combination was hands down the star of the show. I always dig it when someone comes in with that “yeah right” look on their face before they put the headset on…and then afterwards have that slight curl to their mouth and eyebrow raised as if to say “daaayyyaamm!” Yeah, they are that good. And they are that good because like Mike Ross and ComboFiend, we’ve dedicated ourselves to being the best at what we do, and what we do here at Sound Blaster / Creative is make amazing audio products. It’s in our DNA. We’re not just another peripheral company wrapping up baseline and standard tech in pretty packages and selling it. We’re all about selling an experience and living up to the legacy we’ve started and lived for over 2 DECADES on the PC, and bringing that to gamers no matter what platform they are choosing to play on. It sounds cliche’ to say that. But it’s the truth. And the other truth is I’m just tired of people settling for the “good enough” of motherboard audio, or of audio products made by companies that really don’t specialize in the field. In todays world, a dollar (or Euro, or Pound, or Peso, etc.) is hard to come by. And it’s a shame when someone plunks down their hard earned cash expecting one experience and getting something completely LESS than what they hoped for or expected. I’ve heard this story way too many times. We’ve taken some flak here for the length of time the Omega has taken to reach the market, and believe us, we would have liked to have it out sooner. BUT! It wasn’t meeting that level we wanted it to. So we tweaked and preened, and modified, and tested, and tweaked some more until it met what we felt was a standard that would deliver the experience a $199 US gaming headset SHOULD deliver. Not hiding behind the typical marketing gimmicks you see and just delivering a solid pound for pound bad mofo gaming headset. In other words…not a $50 headset in $200 clothing. We’re proud of the result and even more proud that the Omega is finally shipping within the next 2 weeks to customers that pre-order and available shortly after that “in your finer electronics stores” all over the world.

So if we met you at PAX Prime for the first time, or if you’ve been a long-time Sound Blaster fan (like me…decades in my case) the Omega is for YOU, and just the tip of the iceberg as to what we’ll be announcing at IFA within the next few days, and even more over the coming weeks.

Spread the word blasters..and know that if you recommend us, you’re not going to be sorry you did so!

As always, there’s much more to come.

Ryan (AKA DigitalRonyn)

I just had to include Deadmau5 guy because...well...it's Deadmau5!

The Tactic3D Omega FAQ

Hey there Blasters,

Now that the madness of E3 is past I figured it would be a good idea to post up a blog with all of the frequently asked questions from the press / media / users at the show (as well as some from the Facebook and other social media channels).

1. What is the release date of the Tactic3D Omega?

It will be shipping at the end of July 2011.

1A. Wait..why is it shipping so late? You guys talked about it back in January!!!

Because we’ve taken a stance of shipping it “when it’s done and meets our standards”. Even in it’s primitive state at CES it was nominated as a finalist in the gaming category (one of the top 3 gaming products at the show) but to put it simply, it wasn’t good enough for us. We wanted better curves for the audio and had a few mechanical tweaks (and wireless updates) we wanted to implement. It’s now to the state where we feel it’s worthy of wearing the crown of being our flagship headset in the Tactic3D lineup and is in production as I type this. Having the word SOUND in your brands name should mean something, and it does to us. (Sorry to those that have been waiting so long…the wait will be worth it as anyone that touched and heard the headset at E3 will attest to)

2. What makes the Tactic3D Omega so special?

Lots and lots of things. I’ll bullet a few things here…

• No crazy proprietary cables. Either USB or mini-jack cables and you are done.
• It’s sporting massive 50mm drivers that are FullSpectrum™ tuned.
• What does FullSpectrum™ mean? Our drivers are tuned to provide a flat response. Since we have the THX TruStudio tech that allows people to crank their EQ and then further the highs and lows through THX Crystalizer or THX Bass technology…we spend extra money on providing very linear response drivers that allow the user to take advantage of the crazy amount of calibration you can do with the THX TruStudio tech. The short version is. With FullSpectrum drivers you won’t have muddy bass or crazy piercing highs because we don’t buy cheap pre-defined drivers…we use higher end drivers that let you tune the headset the way you want to hear it. Crazy bass? Yep. Crystal clear highs? Yep. Both? Yep. The choice is yours.
• It glows all purty like. The blue glow is indeed mesmerizing and gives your desk a +5 to all charisma checks.
• It’s our first cross-platform gaming headset. It plays nice with Xbox360, PS3, PC, and MAC. It also will work with basically anything that cranks out  audio via a 1/8″ mini-jack as long as it has USB to power the transceiver unit.
• You can use it WHILE it is charging. We opted to go with a cable versus a cradle because it would totally suck to have to go and place your headset on a charging dock due to the fact you went to bed at 4am after an all night Halo bender.
• It’s built like a tank. Not a heavy tank. Like a tank made out of Adamantium from that crazy lab they made Wolverine in.

4. Does THX TruStudio Pro work on Xbox360 or PS3? 

No. THX TruStudio Pro works only on PC and Mac with the Omega. If you want THX goodness for consoles you want the Recon3D Omega version. (see my next post)

5.What’s the wireless range of the Omega?

It’s about 50-60 feet inside (through walls). More than long enough for you to walk to the kitchen or bathroom (yeah I went there) assuming you don’t live in a mansion. And if you do…it might make it far enough even then.

6. What spectrum does the Omega run in? 

It runs in the 2.4 gHz spectrum. We’ve opted for narrow-band technology because it’s proven and the tech we’ve implemented in bulletproof when it comes to interference. Since we’re narrowband we can run uncompressed point to point and operate in several channels at the same time…ensuring there’s no interference. We also have opted for a complete on / off signal. So if you do get out of range the headset will cut out versus blast your ears with static.

7. How do I know how much charge my headset has left?

The Omega features battery polling. So you can see in the interface of the headset drivers. You also get an audible beep when the headset reaches certain percentages of charge left.

8. How long will it run on a charge?

About 8 hours at 75% volume.

9. Does the Tactic3D Omega also support TacticProfiles?

Yep. It’s a mainstay of our Tactic3D headset lineup. In fact we’re greatly expanding the Tactic3D library with profiles from gamers like Andy “Bravo” Dudynsky (Halo), John “Fatal1ty” Wendel (epic pro gamer), Byron “Wreckful” Bernstein (WoW) and also tuned for specific upcoming games.

I’ll be following this post up with additional info on the Recon3D and Tactic3D X360 we announced at E3 as well in my next post. So as always stay tuned for more info!

Ryan (AKA DigitalRonyn)

New look…for some new direction…

Hello once again folks. As you may have already seen, we’ve updated the look and feel for our Sound Blaster home page. The web folks have taken feedback from all of you as well as from our internal wishlist and have come up with what I think is an incredibly clean and easy to navigate page with…*gasp* useful info.

So what did we change?

-  The look and feel to a cleaner easier to digest (with lots of fiber also!) layout.

- The latest drivers for products are now easily found in TWO locations. The center of the bottom of the front page under “latest drivers” (pretty self explanatory) and ALSO the link in the upper right corner which says “Download Drivers” also pretty self-explanatory. The Download Drivers option takes you straight to the support page so you can quickly search for any drivers that might not be in the “latest” area.

- We’ve also updated the two other bottom portions to be fed by out partner and news pages so the latest and greatest content from all of our partners (Complexity, Fatal1ty, Dignitas, Archaic…etc) will be instantly available.

- Updated our partner pages with the latest stories from them as well. So if you want to keep up with all of our outreach activities, latest shows, tournaments (hint) and whatnot..this is a great place to see it.

All of these changes have been made to celebrate our latest direction…bringing the legendary Sound Blaster experience that we started back in the day on the PC to your favorite gaming platform regardless of whether it be PC, Mac, Xbox 360, PS3, or whatever your platform might be (I think we could probably even finagle some support for my long lost Dreamcast ).

That being said I’ve got a couple updates for those of you looking for info on product launches coming here in the next few weeks. We have updated info on the pending Omega launch (which will now be coming to you in additional flavors) as well as a TON more info on the Recon3D (which many of you have been asking for…and we’re almost ready to talk about).

So hang in there..and I hope you like the new direction.

As always…more to come!

Ryan AKA DigitalRonyn

PS: I’ll be pouncing on the questions some of you have submitted here over the next few days as well. Thanks for your patience!

Of consoles and kings…

Hey there Sound Blaster fans. Or should I call you Blasters…or Blaster Fans…hmm. We’ll have to get to an official “fan”name at some later date, but I digress.

It’s been a very very busy past few months here on the product development side of things. In case you missed it, we announced our Tactic3D Omega and our Recon3D products at CES and received a very warm welcome from the media. The largest honor was being nominated a finalist for the Best of CES Gaming category with the Tactic3D Omega. It came down to us, the Nintendo 3DS and an insanely powerful Alienware gaming laptop. As far as gaming products goes…that’s some seriously amazing company to be with. The Nintendo 3DS took away the top honor, but like I said previously, we were proud to have bubbled up to be seen as one of the top 3 offerings of the show for gaming.

And in case you aren’t following on Facebook, the Game Informer guys are also pretty stoked about our entry into the console space as well. My personal favorite quote is…

“”With built-in PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 functionality, Creative’s new wireless Omega headset should be crowned king of all headsets.”

Ryan likey a lot.

But words are words, and we’re excited that the latest offerings are nearing launch time. The Omega we’re expecting to launch in early May with the Recon3D launching around the E3 time frame. And speaking of E3, we’ll be exhibiting all of the announced products at the show this year (along with some additional surprises as well!).

And for all of our World of Warcraft Headset fans here, the class lenses are in production and almost ready to launch. You can expect to see them become available on Creative.com and Blizzard.com within the next couple weeks as well.

As always, there’s lot’s more on the horizon…so stay tuned!

 

Ryan (DigitalRonyn)

Anyone else LOVE this gaming goodness?

This time of the year is always my favorite…but also the hardest to find time.

I think many of you fellow gamers know exactly what I’m talking about. Summer and Holidays seem to be where all the hot games come down the pipe.

Lately I’ve been spending my time (way too much of it) playing Fallout New Vegas. The game just completely re-invigorated my love for the Fallout franchise. I played through Fallout 3 and though it was a great game, but New Vegas feels MORE like the older fallout games than Fallout 3 did. It just has that “dirty” vibe to it that the originals had.

Medal of Honor has been a great romp as well, but with Black Ops being released MOH has taken somewhat of a back seat. The difference between the two games is quite interesting to me. MOH feels more like a sniper / long-distance fest and COD Black Ops feels more like an “assault” and up close and personal game. I definitely need to spend more time with Black Ops or I’ll be hearing it from all my online buds.

This isn’t even including Starcraft 2 (which I’ve DEFINITELY lost about 20 steps on) or Assassins Creed Brotherhood thats looming in its shrink-wrapped goodness.

What games have you all been playing lately? Interested to hear everyones opinions on the latest releases.

- Ryan (DigitalRonyn)

Introducing the New Generation of Sound Blaster products.

Hello Sound Blaster fans, it’s been a while here for the blog…but we’re back and better than ever!

Earlier this year we shipped our first headsets under the Sound Blaster brand in the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Series. These were the first headsets to be powered by our amazingly powerful THX TruStudio Pro audio enhancement technology. And now we’re going full THX power across the board.

For USB offerings we’ve just released the versatile  Sound Blaster Surround 5.1 Pro, our tiny USB dynamo in your pocket  Sound Blaster Go! Pro, and lastly our audiophile quality offering X-Fi HD. All three of these products are enhanced with THX TruStudio Pro technology.

On the internal side our highest SnR and arguably best sounding card we’ve ever made, the Sound Blaster Titanium HD is gathering critical praise wherever it’s been reviewed, being seen as a huge upgrade from onboard sound and delivering sound details you surely never heard before in your music and games.

And of course we’re proud to have launched our first headset in our Sound Blaster Tactic3D lineup. The Sound Blaster Tactic3D Alpha. This headset is fully enhanced with THX TruStudio Pro to go way beyond 7.1 sound and enter the realm of 3D Surround. Why limit yourself to 7 virtual channels?

So taking a quick step back. “Virtual Surround” on headsets is just that. It’s virtually taking multiple sound channel information and applying effects to those sound streams to trick your brain into thinking it’s hearing things as if they were around you. Now going forward, saying a headset is 7.1 is actually rather misleading. It’s terminology used by us marketing folks to make it easy to explain to the masses that a headset is “surround” capable.

Now the .1 channel is technically the “subwoofer” in a surround environment. Almost every headset claiming to be 7.1 is a 2.0 headset (2 speaker drivers) that are simulating surround by applying various effects. You don’t have 7 speakers in the headset, and certainly don’t have a dedicated subwoofer strapped to your noggin (that would definitely cause some neck cramping). Some headsets have tried to wedge multiple speakers into their configuration, but when you have less than an inch of actual physical separation between the physical speaker drivers, the “surround” effect is not nearly as convincing to your brain as using audio effects. The headsets are capable however of receiving these sound channels, but how they reproduce the surround effect, and how that effect is delivered to your brain is where the men and boys are separated.

What we’ve done at Creative is take the whole surround channel setup several steps beyond 5.1 or 7.1. Our THX TruStudio Pro technology takes those multiple channel outputs and translates them to create the virtual surround effect, but also BLENDS those channels on the fly to create virtually an unlimited amount of surround channels. And with THX TruStudio Pro we also are able to use a technique called elevation filters which allows for sounds to be created in an axis that is above or below you as the user as well. So rather than having a “ring” of virtual speakers surrounding you as you would with a 5.1 or 7.1 setup, you have a SPHERE of virtual speakers. This makes for a much more realistic audio experience and allows you to pinpoint sounds in 3D space. The other key difference is we can simulate surround even off of basic stereo channel information (the more channels the better…so if you’re playing a game turn ON surround sound! But we’re more than capable of simulating surround even with stereo channels only). That’s where being a SOUND company makes a huge difference since most games don’t utilize elevation filters in their games (yet), we can simulate these by looking at the streams in real-time and analyzing where they are placed in relation to the users avatar in-game. Giving our algorithms a good sense of where the sound is positioned in space. Even a slight difference is interpreted by the brain as vastly different, and this leads to a much more convincing surround effect that conventional 7.1 or 5.1 tech. This is something you just can’t get unless you live and breathe sound products like we do every day (and have been “doing” for decades now). We develop our tech in-house and with partners like THX, as well as work directly with game developers to make sure we’re living up to how THEY want their games to be heard by the masses.

Over the next few days I’ll be talking about our new TacticProfile system that comes with the Tactic3D lineup. We’ve actually gone way past just making a product for gamers, we’ve incorporated their ears into the product and for the first time ever are allowing people to hear their games exactly how the pros hear them by remapping our massive amount of customization options with THX TruStudio Pro in one simple click of a TacticProfile. And you’ll hear from those pro gamers directly how this has changed their way of gaming. I’ll also be giving a sneak peek on some of the new things to come down the Creative / Sound Blaster product pipeline.

As always, there’s more to come!

Ryan (DigitalRonyn)

Webcasts and some thanks!

Hey there Sound Blaster fans!

If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I had my innagural webcast yesterday evening over at complexitygaming.com. The webcast is something we’re going to be repeating a lot more of so we can answer questions from all of you out there.

Here’s the link: DigitalRonin Webcast .001 BETA

In the webcast I show off the Tap Chat for the first time and also show a bit of the color changing on the headsets and the new World of Warcraft logo lens that will be included in the Tap Chat as a bonus item.

I also wanted to give a special thank you to Cindy Andrie from Cinderellas Blog for her help in tracking down a pretty elusive Mac driver bug in 64-bit mode with the launcher console. Her work with myself and the engineering team behind the scenes was great. Thanks again Cindy!

As always, more to come!
Ryan (AKA Digitalronyn)

Of Lenses, Tap Chats and Firmware…

Hey there again folks,

First off..I just wanted to apologize for my lack of repsonding to several comments! I just now found out how I can easily see these in a list and can hit them up easier. So expect me to respond much more quickly on the comments moving forward (yay for online tutorials!).

And also…

Some quick updates for all of you World of Warcraft headset owners (or future ones!) out there.
Tap Chat

The artist formerly known as the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Voice Tap will now be known as the Sound Blaster World of Warcraft Tap Chat. We convinced him to not use the bizarre symbol that he was planning to.  You never know what’s going to happen with those diva foot pedals..but we’re assured the name will forevermore be Tap Chat.
And speaking of Tap Chat…the million dollar question..when will it be available (and where!??).

The Tap Chat will be appearing at the beginning of May on Creative.com and Blizzard.com.

Class Lenses

The class lenses are well into production and will be debuting in late May. All 10 classes will be available (except for Priests..since I can’t seem to find one anymore for my raids and it makes me sad…ok…kidding on that one…Priests WILL have a lens to).  These will also be debuting on Creative.com and Blizzard.com so you’ll be able to customize your headset to another soon. I expect to see pics on the Facebook page!

Firmware Updates!

In response to the potential issue that some of our users have brought up with mic sensitivity. We will be releasing a firmware update for both the Wired and Wireless headsets within the next couple of weeks that will adjust the gain boost at the firmware level of the headset. This should help those that feel they are getting too much background noise over their headset mic.

Mac Driver update

And lastly, as I’ve noted a few times on the Facebook page we’ll also have a Mac driver that addresses latency issues on the Mac side. This will also increase performance overall. We’re still looking into the .kext installer issue. In the vast majority of cases the .kext error that displays for some Mac users is a false error  and the driver installs correctly..but we have a few reporting after they see the error they cannot access the control panel. We’re working with individuals that have reported this..if you are seeing this error please contact me in the comments here if you want to help us continue to track this down. We’ve made some great progress but it’s a rather tricky bug to nail down.

Ok I know I said lastly but…

The Future

I’ll also be talking about some additional headset accessories coming up this summer as well as more of the Sound Blaster headset and sound card ranges here. So stay tuned!
As always..much more to come!

Ryan (AKA DigitalRonyn)

Notes on the World of Warcraft Headsets

Hey there Sound Blaster fans,

The World of Warcraft headsets are now released into the wild. An almost 3 year project in the making with passionate folks from Blizzard and Creative bringing it to market.
With that being said we actually have got some reports of some issues with the headset through various channels and I wanted to update everyone here with where we’re at with these reported issues. Our goal is to deliver a flawless experience to everyone, and the majority of people are having this…but we also can’t turn a blind eye to reported issues as well (and won’t!). So that being said here’s what I got on the plate:

1. We’ve got a few reports (rare) of users having an issue with Mac OSX 10.6.2. (and one with 10.6.1) where the users received an error that says:

“The system extension
“/System/Library/Extensions/THXTrutudioPCUSBAudioPlugin.kext” was
installed improperly and cannot be used. Please try reinstalling it,
or contact the product’s vendor for an update.”

In most cases this error is thrown up in..well error. It’s not actually an issue (outside from the error message popping up_. What happens is the OS tries to immediately initialize the hardware and the permissions of the software haven’t been updated yet. Which means you get this error.  So if you see this continue the install…reboot your machine and the headset should be working fine. We have however also heard of people not being able to use the control panel after getting this error. We’re actively working on a solution for this. Chances are though that the headset should function fine after seeing this message.

2. Latency on input on Mac.

WWe’ve already got a fix for this en route. We should have a new driver up for Mac shortly.

3. Mic sensitivity.

Some users are experiencing their mic being “too” good and it’s picking up more noise from their surroundings than they want.

We’re looking at the default gain values for the microphones and are working on a tool for users to be able to set their firmware to different gain levels. This should give people more flexibility as to what mic levels they’d like to use. The recommendation right now is to set the Mic level to 40% or so in the control panel. We’ve used a very good microphone in the mic boom that some people might not be used to as many lower end headsets out there use microphones with a very low response and might be used to having to have their microphone cranked up. Also make sure your Outbound in Vent is normalized  (set to 0 – or even negative). This helps as well.

4. A few of the VoiceFX are not reflecting the race / character correctly.

We’ve got a driver update for the VoiceFX that tweaks a few of the effects (Blood Elf Female for instance) to better reflect the voice they are intended to portray. Keep in mind however, there are limits to the tech…so we’ll do our best to make Christopher Walken sound like Britney Spears…but we’ve only go so much magic to go around.

5. Some folks want MORE VoiceFX.

We’ve got plans to expand the VoiceFX in future software revs. So stay tuned!

REVIEWS!

We’ve certainly been receiving a lot of coverage on the headsets. I’m popping the links here for all of you to jump and take a look in case you haven’t seen any of it.

As always..lots more to come.

Ryan (Aka Digitalronyn)

Popular Science — April 2010 issue

Tom’s Guide
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Creative-WoW-Wireless-Headset,review-1502.html.

IGN.com
http://gear.ign.com/articles/106/1068575p1.html
http://gear.ign.com/articles/106/1066901p1.html

Gaming Shogun
http://www.gamingshogun.com/Article/6379/Creative_Labs_World_of_Warcraft_Wireless_Headset_-_A_Review.html

PC World
http://www.macworld.com/article/146434/2010/02/wow_headset.html

New York Times
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/for-gamers-who-are-all-ears/

CrunchGear
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/14/review-creative-world-of-warcraft-headset/

Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-892-PC-Game-Examiner~y2010m3d23-Creative-Labs-World-of-Warcraft-Wireless-headset-review

World of Warcraft Headset Tips and Tricks

Hello all,

First off…if you haven’t joined us over on the Facebook page for Sound Blaster, you might want to jump over there now and do so. The community is really hopping and growing on a daily basis with all the World of Warcraft (and MMO gamers in general) joining in.

We’re also over there answering questions in real time….between Tawnee, Kristen and myself we have the site covered pretty well (even with me being totally decimated the past 2 days with a wicked head cold).

That being said…I figured I’d pop up a summary of the most common questions that have popped up since the pre-order units have shipped out.

Product Shipping Stuff

1. When are products going to be released to stores other than Amazon.com. Our date is March 22. We’ll be making an announcement of all the retail / etail availability formally on that date. Product will be IN STORES or ON SITES ready to ship on that day.

2. When is the product going to ship to Canada? We’re working right now on Canadian Wireless Certification clearance for the wireless headset and we expect this to clear within the next few weeks. The wired headset will be shipping into Canada and be available at Best Buy on or close to March 22 with the wireless version following shortly after. We also are working with Amazon.com to be able to ship to Canada as well…so this will be an option in the near future also.

Product Performance Setup Stuff

3. A few folks have commented that the headset microphone is picking up sound more than their previous headsets. We’re using a high-end mic in the headsets which is a lot more sensitive than what people were most likely using before. The suggestion from our side here is to balance the mic level out at 50% or lower (a lot of folks have this CRANKED in their settings by default) since the mic is of a higher quality you’re not going to need to overdrive it. This should help out.

4. My microphone sounds “muffled” to people. This seems to be something to do with outbound sound or people who have people filtered on the other side of Vent. As we’ve seen from several folks that people are saying that some people say they sound muffled and some people say they sound fine (on the same channels). If people previously filtered you and lowered your settings or applied an EQ to you in Vent make sure they change them to reflect your new headset. There’s going to be a difference there.

5. We’ve also seen some folks that wanted more out of the VoiceFX feature of the headset. We’ve supplied a pretty generous number of presets at launch and have plans to expand on them moving forward. So any and all suggestions would be awesome to have. Also keep in mind that we’re approximating a filter that tries to change EVERY persons unique voice out there to some very iconic names inside the game…so there’s going to be some variance across the board. We used names from the game to reflect the general tone of the filter so people get an immediate idea of the effect we’re going after.

6. One of the most important questions (on a technical side) that I saw asked was how to configure the headset optimally inside of World of Warcraft.

Our recommendation is the following.

Check the ENABLE HARDWARE box in the World of Warcraft audio settings tab. This will enable World of Warcrafts game engine to start sending out multiple audio streams to be interpreted by audio hardware. The THX Surround feature eats delicious audio streams such as this and converts them to some pretty amazing virtual surround in the game.

Disable the 3D Headset Sound check-box however. As what you’ll get at this point is the built in World of Warcraft virtual surround competing with the THX surround and you’ll end up with an over-processed sound stream. Of course if you prefer the native 3D Headset Surround found in World of Warcraft you could leave this enabled but make sure you DISABLE the THX Surround feature in the headset driver interface if you’re going this route.
IN short follow this basic stream.

- If you want to use the THX Surround Engine feature for virtual headset surround.

A. Enable “Use Hardware” on the audio tab.

B. Disable 3D Headset Surround on the audio tab.

C. Enable THX Surround in the headset driver interface and adjust accordingly.

- If you want to use the built in World of Warcraft 3D Surround.

A. Disable “Use Hardware” on the audio tab.

B. Enable 3D Headset Surround on the audio tab.

C. Disable THX Surround in the headset driver interface.

Random Other Questions

7. When are you going to be releasing the foot switch? We’ll be announcing this soon. A few details we’re sorting out but almost good to go! The foot switch will be available through Creative.com and Blizzard.com worldwide.

8. When are you going to be releasing the class lenses? Same as the question above. We’re in the final stages right now of getting these ready to roll out to the masses. We’ll have some pics up in the near future! Believe me I want my lock ones NOW also.

Alright hopefully this helps some of you out and I’ll be noting anything else that pops up as more and more headsets get out there.

As always..more to come.

Ryan (AKA Digitalronyn – oh and this IS NOT my World of Warcraft characters name!)