Ready for ultimate console audio

There’s been renewed interest in spatial audio since the staged reveal of details about the next – now current – generation of consoles. The addition of custom hardware dedicated to processing spatial audio in both the PlayStation 5 from Sony and Xbox Series X|S from Microsoft is a step forward for game developers, who can now offload directional audio processing from the main console CPU. This allows more sounds running at the same time with directional cues with no penalty on the rest of the game’s performance.

Even better news? There’s no need for a new generation of headsets to take advantage of this technology. For example, as Sony itself has recently clarified on its Blog, all the processing takes place inside your PS5 and all you need to take advantage of “Tempest Engine” powered audio is a stereo headset, connected to the headset jack on the PS5 controller if it‘s a wired headset, or alternatively via USB if it’s a PlayStation compatible USB audio solution.

^{Analog headsets (both open and closed acoustic) are compatible with PC, PS4/PS5, Axbox Series X|S/Xbox One and all devices with a 2 x 3.5mm and 1 x 3.5mm plug.}

This means you can already enjoy PS5 audio as the game designer intended on any EPOS wired or wireless headset. In addition, if you’re an Xbox Series X|S fan, all of the EPOS wired headsets can take advantage of its freshly upgraded audio chip. Our wireless headsets remain incompatible with the Xbox proprietary USB audio implementation that persists from the Xbox One days.

^{Wireless headsets are compatible with PC and PS4/PS5. (Note that EPOS Surround only works with PC).}

Critically, the one thing that will really add to your experience of next-generation directional audio on either console is the quality of the headset you connect. We know this from our long experience working on our custom EPOS Surround Sound technology developed for use with PC games.

^{Sound cards are compatible with PC}

For your ears and brain to interpret audio from a headset as being from specific locations in the game, the reproduction of audio frequencies across the spectrum – especially in the mid and upper registers – needs to be as accurate and uncolored by the headset as possible. This is because the most important directional information that is decoded by our brains is hidden within the higher frequencies. It’s also crucial that the headset speakers are evenly balanced, as the relative volumes at each ear is also significant. At EPOS, our tolerances of variations in manufacturing are small and carefully monitored to ensure that we deliver gamers the pristine, balanced audio they need for the optimum surround sound experience.

The enhanced audio processing resources available to game designers working on titles for the new consoles will only sound as good as the headset that delivers it to a gamer’s ears - which is why we have always engineered EPOS headsets to deliver the performance the new consoles demand. Welcome to the party!