Enhance Your Gaming Experience: Setting Up PS5 3D Audio
3D audio gives you immersive surround sound that makes you feel like you're inside the game. Find out how to enhance your PlayStation®5 console audio by making the sound three-dimensional. With realistic audio, you can actually hear footsteps from the exact direction that an enemy is approaching.
There are two main ways to experience 3D audio on your PS5:
- 3D audio for TV speakers
- 3D audio for headphones
Setting Up 3D Audio for TV Speakers
You can use your TV speakers and the built-in mic on your wireless controller to measure your room acoustics. Here’s how:
- Go to Settings > Sound.
- Select 3D Audio (TV) and follow the on-screen instructions to adjust the optimal 3D audio setting based on the measurement results. Sit in the same position you would when you normally use your PS5 console.
- After measurement is complete, you can listen to and compare both stereo audio and 3D audio to see which you prefer.
The next time you select Settings > Sound > 3D Audio (TV) and turn on Enable 3D Audio for TV Speakers, stereo audio switches to 3D audio. When you turn off this setting, 3D audio switches to stereo audio.
Whenever you change the position of your TV, your seating, or the room environment, you should measure your room acoustics again.
Troubleshooting 3D Audio with TV Speakers
If you're having difficulty hearing the effects of 3D audio or you’d like to improve it, try the following:
- Check that nothing is blocking the TV speakers.
- If Apply 3D Audio Measurement Results is turned off, sit in front and center of your TV.
- Watch your TV at a distance suitable for its size. Check with your TV's manufacturer for the recommended distance.
- Disable any sound quality adjustment functions for your TV, such as surround sound.
- The volume may change depending on the 3D audio effect. In this case, adjust the volume of your TV.
Setting Up 3D Audio for Headphones on PS5 Consoles
Listen to sounds played at different positions and angles to create an audio profile tailored to your hearing. There are two ways to create a profile.
- Create a personalized 3D audio profile
- Select from 3D audio presets
Creating a Personalized 3D Audio Profile
Measure how you hear 3D audio to create an optimized experience.
- Go to Settings > Sound.
- Select 3D Audio (Headphones) > Create Personalized 3D Audio Profile and follow the on-screen instructions.
- Listen to sounds and answer questions about the position and direction of the sound to set up your personalized 3D audio profile.
Once your personalized 3D audio profile is created you can enable Apply Personalized 3D Audio Profile. When you turn off this setting, the preset 3D audio profile will be used for 3D audio.
The next time you select Settings > Sound > 3D Audio (Headphones) and turn on Enable 3D Audio for Headphones, stereo audio switches to 3D audio.
Also 3D Audio is powered by the tempest engine. 3D audio is only for 2ch output like headphones or TV speakers to mimic surround sound. If you have 7.1 then your PS5 will output to those channels. But you have true surround.
Tempest is a solution for immersive 3D audio built primarily for 2ch outputs like headphones, where it takes a surround signal and modulates it to emulate directional sound and the variances in frequency, tone, etc that we'd normally pick up with our ears when hearing actual 3D sound. It's very similar (and in my opinion worse) to technology like Dolby Headphone and whatnot that PC soundcards have been using for awhile.
Unless something changed in a recent firmware patch (and it may have, I could be out of the loop), Tempest audio only works either via wireless headphone connection, wired connection to the controller, or wired connection through a USB-C to AUX converter plugged into the front of the system.
PS5 Console
Tempest isn't really necessary as a solution to anything if you have an existing 7.1 surround sound set up. In this instance the hardware is already communicating a full surround sound 7.1 channel signal to the receiver, which is then being sent to relative speakers for natural output.
Additional Information
3D headphone audio is basically a facsimile of a 3D surround setup for people who don't/can't have surround sound. Headphones are big right now, especially with a lot of competition in the IEM market, as well as relatively cheap "good" headphones. Clearly during the development of PS5, Sony decided to start chasing technological advances that weren't just graphics because it's harder to market purely on just that in our world of ever diminishing returns. So they decided to focus on developing DualSense and 3D audio to engage your other senses. Dualsense has been a big success. Can't say the same for 3D audio.
The vast majority of headsets are not actually surround sound headsets... the thing is, many games do that themselves already, just maybe not as detailed. But footsteps from in front of you usually have a different pitch than ones behind you. 3D Audio does the same thing just slightly more sophisticated.
It uses binaural sound. It's designed to be used with any stereo headphones. You don't need "surround headphones" to use it. You have 2 ears. You only need 2 sound inputs to create 3D audio from a fixed location source (ie headphones).
Binaural audio (3D audio) isn't the same as simply recording in stereo, it's designed to give you spatial information that stereo doesn't give you, and it works. It's worked since the early days of 4D cinema experiences at theme parks. except now instead of recording binaural audio we can generate it based on a head related transfer function (HRTF) and move the source of the sound to where we like giving the listener spatial awareness.
It's worth it for games where you need to locate enemy footsteps or sounds (like CoD).
If a game has built in ways that does this already, as in make the sound physically correct based on postion then it is essentially 3D audio already coded into the game.
They had 3D audio since PSVR launched back in 2016. It was great then, it's even better now.