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Which is why I don't like headphones. Move your head and the sound doesn't move. Can't locate anything that way.


Spatial audio cues in videogames work just fine for me with headphones!

When I play Valorant and am trying to be sneaky, I will tune out whatever my teammates are saying to listen for footsteps, or other audio cues that might indicate some activity. Using my mouse to rotate my view changes how the sounds come in to my headphones, and allows for some amount of directional awareness.

This is geared towards using shotguns to surprise people, by jumping out and blasting them before they have much time to react. Unfortunately, I'm not perfect at this, and swing out early about 1/3rd to 3/8ths of the time.


In games that support head tracking and spatial sound (I.e. Arma 3) it's incredible the difference it makes being able to move the head around to listen at things, spatial awareness increases tenfold.

I wonder why nobody tried the same with audio players. Granted you have to have your head in front of a webcam, so it is uniquely well suited to gamers in front of a pc and not to audiophiles on a sofa, but still.


Apple Music supports spatial audio for Dolby Atmos songs with Airpods Pro and Max. It is quite a different experience.


Ironically that's why I do like headphones. They help tune out environmental noise which would otherwise be distracting.




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