OK 800 5.1 Surround Sound Headphones :: mvk.tech :: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 GTX 260 9800 GX2 9600 GT 8800 GTX ATI Radeon HD 4870 HD 4850 HD 3870 X2 HD 3850 2900 XTX

Installation is simple, just install the headphones into any available USB port and power up the headphones. You will see a blue power LED to indicate the headphones are powered up and ready for operation.

Now we will install the included software. The Multi-channel software is basically a digital signal processor with effects that range from chorus and delay and other spatial sounds that include echo's and equalizers to karaoke. This software is not needed to run the headphones, but comes in handy if you do not have audio software that utilizes the AC97 codec. However if you do not have a built in sound on your mother-board then this software will be needed to utilize the full potential of these headphones.

Installing the software is fast and easy, I just installed the application and took this screenie and I will proceed with installation. Okay we are done here, time to reboot, be right back!

With this setup you will be able to test two, four, six and eight channel surround sound effects. Choosing the headphone options is not recommended as you will want to use the 8 channel setting to utilize the eight speaker headphone system. Once you select your channel you can then set the stereo mixer and and shape the tone of your audio.

Here we have the most common features found on most emulation software. These tabs show the control and features that turn the OK 800's into a true 5.1 channel surround sound headphone. The software allows you to pick presets that are preprogrammed for audio enhancements and environment effects that give you echos and delays for long hall echos and other effects. The equalizer will allow you to curve the tone to your personal needs, giving the user a -20 +20 dB adjustments.

Once you install the software and power up the headphones, you will find that in most cases the headphones do not work and to save yourself some frustration you will have to navigate to the audio properties from the control panel and set the default playback and record devices to "C-Media USB Sound Device" in order to use the headphones. There is no manual or guide telling you this and we had to figure it out on our own.

Once you set the playback and recording devices you can now enjoy the new headphones in the Windows environment. While this is no big deal, on our configuration and as well as others you will have to switch these back and forth to utilize both headphones and your desktop speakers.

Performance & Testing:

After configuring the audio properties to send audio to the headphones, we went on to testing the 3D positioning capabilties of the OK800's. This application roughly represents the sound of a helicopter spinning around giving you the effects it is circling your position. The headphones do give off the effect of it circling you, but the effects are minimal.

Helicopter: HRTF 3D Positional Sound Generator

After Thoughts:

After using the headphones for a while now I have mixed feelings to as to their performance and audio sound stage spatial effects. While they are a step above a standard 2 channel headphone set, the effects of a true 5.1 surround sound system, are not emulated that well with these headphones. While they work better than most conventional headphones, the performance is not as good as other 5.1 headphone offerings. So we are a little dissapointed in cost versus performance. The surround sound effects are again minimal, however, over all the headphones are average in performance and offer sleek design and handsome looks.

In game effects are a little better in titles like Doom 3 and Far Cry, you do get a better sense of direction but performance is still lacking, the stereo seperation and channel depth is to close together and would benefit from the speakers spaced further apart. The speaker quality lacks sonic purity, but again performs average for its design and capabilities.

The initial installation on our Intel platform yielded some problems, so we migrated these over to our nF4 platform and these worked rather well. We did however find a solution to the problem on the Intel platform. By changing out the audio drivers, we got rid of a driver confliction and the headphone performed with less than desirable results on our Intel test bed.

On the other hand these headphones provide a good personal audio experience, giving others around you the peace and quiet while your in battle of your favorite game, along with some degree of surround sound that does enhance some game play. So for that, we liked the headphones. On an ending note, we would like to see better 5.1 Dolby surround performance from such a sleek design.

Pros: