Best way to play Dolby Atmos movies on headphones? (re: virtual surround sound)

[sofakng]

Are there any good virtual surround sound options for playing Dolby
Atmos (or DTS) on a PC with headphones?

I've just finished my first beginner/budget audiophile setup:

beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro (250 ohm)
Monoprice Liquid Spark Amplifier
Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC

So far I'm pretty happy. There is definitely a large difference from my motherboard audio.

However, I often watch movies on my PC that contain surround sound (Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Atmos, etc). What is the best method for playback using virtual surround sound?

Is there anything even worth using?

I've just played a movie with my very old 5.1 PC speakers and I do enjoy that directional audio hearing sounds behind me, etc.

[Asmodian]

The "DTS Sound Unbound" app from the Microsoft store has worked well for me. It costs a little to unlock the headphone support but it seems to work and has been easy to reinstall on a new OS.

[sofakng]

Thanks for the reply. I've seen that application and Dolby Access (ie. Dolby Atmos for headphones).

However, I'm not sure if or how it works with media players like MPC-HC?

[Asmodian]

However, I'm not sure if or how it works with media players like MPC-HC?

It works by exposing a 7.1 device to MPC-HC and it does the downmixing to headphones itself. It works with any player or game.

Edit: For Dolby Atomos I used the "Dolby Access" app, it is a lot cheaper but offers less options. This is the one I was thinking of but I don't see what I remember for setting it up as a 7.1 device. :o

[Crimson Wolf]

If you want a free alternative, you can try https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesuvi/. It uses EqualizerAPO as a base and adds a bunch of virtualization options along with several equalizer settings from the AutoEQ project.

[RXP]

Get into: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

Amazing. I've virtualized two of my theaters and use my ANC headphones when there's construction going on inside my house. Silent bliss and all the boom of my proper surround setup.

[Morgin187]

I agree with the above comment regarding impulcifer. If you can invest around £200-£300 for a good single speaker, mic, in ear mics and an interface device you can get surround sound tailored by yourself for your ears. It’s amazing when done right. Bare in mind you have to take measurements which can be fiddly to get right and use cmd options. But worth the effort and money to have high quality surround sound for any headphones. There’s a forum on headfi where you will also get a lot of help

[Alexkral]

I suppose that Impulcifer must be the best way to go, but I find it complicated and expensive, and you cannot be sure that you will like the result more than other solutions. I guess I'll end up trying it anyway at some point. In the meantime I'm quite satisfied with HeSuVi, I'm using the atmos- HRIR for movies and the waves- HRIR for music. The atmos- HRIR gives a huge soundstage and a good center channel, but the sound quality is not very good (too much reverb for me). The waves- HRIR has too much reverb too, but it sounds more detailed.

I'm also mixing some music for myself with the Waves Nx plugin (not only multichannel, but also stereo after upmixing with Halo upmix), and done right, the result is much better than the waves- and any other HRIR from HeSuVi.

There are a lot of things to try in this (https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/surround-virtualization-for-headphones.29677/) thread as well, but I haven't had the time yet.

[ashlar42]

I personally vouch for Audeze Mobius/Cloud Orbit S solution. They use Waves NX with built in head tracking. Result, in my experience, is absolutely fantastic.
Too bad that there is no way to have Atmos on them, as that can't be decoded to regular LPCM.