Guide: Surround Sound For Music With Headphones Using Foobar

[nVidia_Freak]

I posted this at Rage once because someome needed a guide for it, so I figure I'll post it here too should anyone not know and/or want to know how to do this.

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Before I begin, if you have a Creative card that can utilise CMSS 3D, turn it off.

 

To start with, you will need Foobar to be installed on your computer. For this guide, I will assume that you either have Foobar already installed or you can handle that portion yourself. [The main folder you will be dealing with is (Drive Letter):\Program Files\Foobar2000\components]

 

Next you will need the following components for Foobar: Channel Mixer, Dolby Headphone v1.10.0.270 (Later versions of Dolby Headphone force dynamic compression) and Dolby Headphone (for Foobar). I have uploaded these components for you, here.

 

After downloading the component package, extract the files. Place Dolby Headphone v1.10.0.270 anywhere on your computer; as this is not a Foobar plugin it does not have to be in the 'components' subfolder, altho' you may place it there if you wish. You do have to place foo_dsp_dolbyhp.dll and foo_channel_mixer.dll in the Foobar plugins folder as these are Foobar plugins; they will not function otherwise.

 

The following is a pictorial tutorial on how to get things set up:

 

1) Open Foobar and go to File>Preferences>Playback>DSP Manager. Add Channel Mixer and Dolby Headphone and make sure that Channel Mixer and Dolby Headphone are in this order. Use the buttons marked 'Up' and 'Down' if you need to.

 

 

Select 'Channel Mixer' and click 'Configure Selected' near the top. See that your tabs look the same as the following:

 

Choose either 4 channel or 6 channel. The only difference being that 6 channel will give you the center channel, however, I find that 4 channel makes for a wider sound. 5 channel (providing the low-frequency channel) will not provide any benefits over 4 or 6 channel as none of the sound is going to a subwoofer, but your headphone's drivers which take care of all the frequencies.

 

 

 

 

 

Once you are done, click 'Ok' and then 'Save All' near the bottom right of the preferences window.

 

Next, highlight 'Dolby Headphone' and click 'Configure Selected.' Click the button '...' to the right of the 'Location' box and navigate to where you have placed the Dolby Headphone v1.10.0.270 .dll. It will tell you need to restart for the changes to take effect. Click 'Ok', 'Save All', then restart Foobar. Navigate again so you have the window for Dolby Headphone preferences open. Make sure it looks like this:

The 'Movie Theatre' setting gives your music a live feel to it, however, I believe 'Reference Room' is best for analytical and typical listening.

 

Click 'Ok' and 'Save All' and then 'Close.'

 

There you go! Now you can enjoy your music with quite possibly the best pseudo-surround sound plugin for headphones.

 

Enjoy!

[Andrewr05]

So far so good...

 

 

[OrangeJuice]

I didn't read anything but I'll just say "nice guide!" anyways.