Audeze Mobius Immersive Gaming Headphones Review & Comments

Is there anything here for watching movies and TV series in virtual surround? I’m looking for something better than Dolby Headphone mode from an elderly AV receiver, at a reasonable price.
 
Remember the Penrose will be releasing for the new consoles. Wifi should = higher quality but drops the sound effects features of the mobius


@The Nightfly

If you want surround sound then manufacturers employ trickery to mimic more than 2.0 channels from two headphones drivers. See for example




The only thing I would say is Sony may - or may not - announce new audio toys at IFA 2020 Berlin that is taking place right now. I do not have inside information. Just saying 😎
 
This review isn't quite accurate. You can simulate 3D audio with any stereo signal, no matter if you feed them via USB, Aux or bluetooth.
 
So after reading this review I was thinking go and buy for my PS4 and watching my oled.
But then seeing the Penrose headphones wondering do I wait and get those instead?

how much difference in quality and are Penrose better for PS4/5 given they are designed for console use?
 
So after reading this review I was thinking go and buy for my PS4 and watching my oled.
But then seeing the Penrose headphones wondering do I wait and get those instead?

how much difference in quality and are Penrose better for PS4/5 given they are designed for console use?

It depends if you have to game wirelessly. The Mobius work brilliantly via the PS4 USB port and via the Xbox controller audio output, but you cannot game with them using bluetooth because of the latency.
 
So after reading this review I was thinking go and buy for my PS4 and watching my oled.
But then seeing the Penrose headphones wondering do I wait and get those instead?

how much difference in quality and are Penrose better for PS4/5 given they are designed for console use?

I'd wait for the Penrose, they are due next month so not that long :)
 
If you want surround sound then manufacturers employ trickery to mimic more than 2.0 channels from two headphones drivers. See for example




The only thing I would say is Sony may - or may not - announce new audio toys at IFA 2020 Berlin that is taking place right now. I do not have inside information. Just saying 😎

Thanks @Steven. What I’m looking for ideally, is a device with HDMI input (i.e. works in a similar way to a sound bar) that can digitally decode DD/DTS inputs up to and including something like Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and then provide virtual surround via DSP from there. The only device I’m aware of so far is the Smyth Realiser, but at a cost of about £3k plus decent headphones (e.g. Sennheiser HD800S) it’s a bit outside of budget! Given the growing popularity of headphones I’m surprised there‘s no offerings at more down to earth pricing.
 
It depends if you have to game wirelessly. The Mobius work brilliantly via the PS4 USB port and via the Xbox controller audio output, but you cannot game with them using bluetooth because of the latency.
I'd wait for the Penrose, they are due next month so not that long :)
Good point. The Penrose 2.4GHz connection - on paper - should be lower latency than the mobius Bluetooth connection. The pre-order discount on the Penrose 'probably' means you can sell the Penrose without losing money, if the Penrose does not work out and you find yourself outside the 14 days return period for online purchases
 
I had these for a while and then sold them. I was seriously unimpressed with the sound quality. Lacked any lower end for me
 
Good point. The Penrose 2.4GHz connection - on paper - should be lower latency than the mobius Bluetooth connection. The pre-order discount on the Penrose 'probably' means you can sell the Penrose without losing money, if the Penrose does not work out and you find yourself outside the 14 days return period for online purchases

30 day returns with Hifiheadphones ;)

But yeah, the 2.4GHz connection is the main reason to wait, latency won't be anywhere near as bad as bluetooth.
 
Thanks @Steven. What I’m looking for ideally, is a device with HDMI input (i.e. works in a similar way to a sound bar) that can digitally decode DD/DTS inputs up to and including something like Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and then provide virtual surround via DSP from there. The only device I’m aware of so far is the Smyth Realiser, but at a cost of about £3k plus decent headphones (e.g. Sennheiser HD800S) it’s a bit outside of budget! Given the growing popularity of headphones I’m surprised there‘s no offerings at more down to earth pricing.

Or these for a £1000 JVC XP-EXT1
 
Or these for a £1000 JVC XP-EXT1

Yeah, only just saw that when following one of Steven’s links. Definitely getting very close to what I’m looking for. I think what would make it ideal for me would be:

- Headphone socket(s) so I can plug in some good wired headphones, e.g. my Sennheiser HD600’s or HD650’s (in fact, I don’t need any supplied headphones so there should be an option to just buy the base station only)
- Ability to pass through Dolby Vision / HD10+
- Lip-sync adjustment (couldn’t see if this or the previous bullet point was already built in)
- Significantly less than $1,000 / £1,000

Here’s a list of nice-to-haves but not essential:

- Line out sockets so I can use a good headphone amp as an upgrade on the one built-in (especially for hard to drive headphones and electrostatics like Stax)
- Digital output, so I can use a high quality DAC/Amp as an upgrade on the ones built in
 
Thanks all for the advice. Might wait for Penrose. Using PS4 platinum headset atm and defo dont want Bluetooth lag.
 
Thanks @Steven. What I’m looking for ideally, is a device with HDMI input (i.e. works in a similar way to a sound bar) that can digitally decode DD/DTS inputs up to and including something like Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 and then provide virtual surround via DSP from there. The only device I’m aware of so far is the Smyth Realiser, but at a cost of about £3k plus decent headphones (e.g. Sennheiser HD800S) it’s a bit outside of budget! Given the growing popularity of headphones I’m surprised there‘s no offerings at more down to earth pricing.

It should be remembered that the Audeze are planar magnetically driven, which is pretty much unheard of in their price range. They sound as good as a lot of high-end headphones costing a lot more. There is little point in offering such elaborate connections as ultimately all they need is a basic 2.0 input which is then processed into virtual surround.
 
I've ordered these from Amazon after reading Gregs glowing review and others.
I'm not a gamer, I'm buying them purely to listen to music and to see what planar magnetic's sound like.
 
It should be remembered that the Audeze are planar magnetically driven, which is pretty much unheard of in their price range. They sound as good as a lot of high-end headphones costing a lot more.
Yep, I've heard Audeze LCD-3's a number of times so the technology definitely has the potential to sound very good.

There is little point in offering such elaborate connections as ultimately all they need is a basic 2.0 input which is then processed into virtual surround.
Mmm, not sure I agree with this. I expect Virtual Surround DSP from the raw Dolby Atmos is going to sound more convincing and accurate than processing from a feed that's been down mixed to 2.0 (unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, sorry)
 
Mmm, not sure I agree with this. I expect Virtual Surround DSP from the raw Dolby Atmos is going to sound more convincing and accurate than processing from a feed that's been down mixed to 2.0 (unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, sorry)

The Audeze takes a raw stereo input and processes it into 3D surround. That is how all virtual surround works.
 
I don't think I mention that 3D is USB only.

It was this paragraph that confused me

Firstly, for the Gamer, whether that be console or PC, the headphones connect via the USB or 3.5mm analog connection. Using USB you get access to the 3D surround powered by Waves NX Technology with 5.1 and 7.1 modes. Both connections give you the head tracking, speaker emulation and microphone functions.

It is a great review which I otherwise agree with after nigh on a year of using these headphones.
 
It was this paragraph that confused me

It is a great review which I otherwise agree with after nigh on a year of using these headphones.

Thanks, I can see why it came across like that. I might tweak it when I get a chance.
 
The Audeze takes a raw stereo input and processes it into 3D surround. That is how all virtual surround works.
With Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, etc, there is no such thing as raw stereo, the signal, as delivered to the consumer, in its raw form, starts life as multichannel, e.g. 5.1, 7.1, etc, i.e, multiple (>2) individual channels in lossy or lossless digital format. Surely it’s better to process that signal into virtual surround, for example as done by the Smyth Realiser or the JVC Exofield device mentioned upthread, rather than downmix a multichannel surround signal down to 2 channels and try and approximate from there any height or front-back information.

What I’ve been saying from the beginning of this thread, is there are very few such devices that can do this, and those that can are rather expensive and therefore we need more of them at a more affordable price.
 
With Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos, etc, there is no such thing as raw stereo, the signal, as delivered to the consumer, in its raw form, starts life as multichannel, e.g. 5.1, 7.1, etc, i.e, multiple (>2) individual channels in lossy or lossless digital format. Surely it’s better to process that signal into virtual surround, for example as done by the Smyth Realiser or the JVC Exofield device mentioned upthread, rather than downmix a multichannel surround signal down to 2 channels and try and approximate from there any height or front-back information.

What I’ve been saying from the beginning of this thread, is there are very few such devices that can do this, and those that can are rather expensive and therefore we need more of them at a more affordable price.

You cannot deliver a 5.1 or 7.1 signal to a set of headphones as you can a proper surround system, because ultimately there are just two speakers at the destination. At some point you have to down mix. Ultimately you have to choose where best to do this. On the Xbox, for example, you can choose Dolby Atmos for Headphones at a software level, and turn off the DSP on the Audeze, or you can feed the Audeze a raw uncompressed stereo source and let it do the work.
 
You cannot deliver a 5.1 or 7.1 signal to a set of headphones as you can a proper surround system, because ultimately there are just two speakers at the destination.

Ah, I think I see where the confusion has arisen. I’m talking about ideally wanting a stand-alone processor, such as the Smyth Realiser or JVC Exofield (but cheaper than either) that can take the multi-channel digital audio output from any HDMI source, e.g. a 4K Blu-Ray player, as it’s starting point and processing that into 2-channel, virtual surround encoded, audio that can be used with any conventional pair of headphones. What I’m not interested in, is taking 2 channel audio as the input (even if it was derived from a multi-channel source and downmixed to 2 channels) and processing that into virtual surround as I can do that already.
 
@Greg Hook are you going to get a review of the Penrose?

@The Nightfly I am not sure the Mobius or the Penrose would be the "simulated surround sound" headphone of choice if you are not a Xbox or PlayStation owner? Maybe others can comment.

Also one reason why the Penrose drops the sound effects of the Mobius is because the next generation Xbox Series X and PS5 will both offer 3D audio onboard
 

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