Sonic Quality with the DS5000 System

Virtual Dolby Digital

With the hostile takeover scene from Air Force One blaring at full volume, we got to experience what virtual surround was like, and it was like no…well, no bass. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems with headphones in general is the diminutive size of the drivers - they cannot produce acceptable low frequency sounds. This isn't a specific fault of the DS5000, so we listened on.

What we noticed next was the in-theatre quality of the sound. In either Virtual Front or Virtual Surround mode, the sound was larger, fuller, and….digitally processed. The biggest aural artifacts was the hollow echo sounds created by the DSP effects of virtualization. During heavy action sequences this wasn't a problem, but during a conversation, the actors sounded like they were speaking in a digital cathedral - reverbed, and muddied across the entire frequency range. I turned off Virtual Surround and listened to standard stereo, and the effect vanished, leaving the sound crisp and bright. With the wired Koss headphones, the same effect was heard whenever the HRTF/Dolby DSP was activated.

What about the surround sound?

Most longtime readers know that I'm not a particularly big fan on HRTFs. I feel that given time, you can train yourself to know when an average HRTF sound is supposed to come from behind you, if nothing by listening and learning the effects of the phase variance and sonic filtering applied by the positional algorithms. Nothing is more realistic than a sound that actually comes from behind you, since it's what you've had a lifetime to recognize. It's amazing how unobvious this is to some developers.

Well, the good news is that Sony's DSP and HRTF algorithms do a much better job of virtualizing surround sound than the average chip. Watching a movie, it was difficult to tell when actions are to be heard directly from behind, but by taking my eyes off the action onscreen, certain sounds were more convincingly originating from behind.

Ease of listening

I do have to say that using virtualized stereo/surround is much easier on the ears than standard stereo. While I prefer the clarity and spatial separation of unmodified stereo, the fact that most sounds appear to be originating from inside my head makes it difficult to watch a movie onscreen with headphones - it just doesn't seem natural. The expanded and deepened soundstage of virtual surround gives the sound a more wide, ranging quality, and is much less fatiguing for long-term use.

Wireless Quality

One of the primary axioms of the audiophile is that wireless technology isn't ready for primetime. In fact, it's widely accepted that wireless phones aren't as clear as wired phones, and wireless headphones don't provide nearly as much quality as wired headphones. Sony knows this, and the MDR-DS5000 headphones are designed to fulfill a unique niche in the market, and sell on features rather than hifi audiophile features. Indeed, with computer equipment nearby, I often picked up a noticeable hiss in the background simply by moving my head around in front of the monitor. Using the Koss headphones attached through the jack showed no problems.