Customer Reviews

Surround Sound Headphone Adaptor

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I travel alot and enjoy watching DVD's on the plane with my laptop. This device does a Dolby Digital Surround Sound using any kind of headphone.

It makes my DVD's sound great and it is so small and light.

I have also used this with my Video ipod for watching video's in surround and I was blown away.

Highly recommended !

This unit sounds super. With a noise reducer headset and this unit, my TV sound is great! However, this unit goes through batteries like crazy. It's too bad JVC didn't allow for an external power source.

Highly recommended if you need to game with headphones a lot.

I'm using it with an Xbox 360 (connected via optical SPDIF cable), on the DH1 setting, with Sennheiser Ovation HD650 headphones.

Optical digital connection is very important. If you connect it via the analog connection, you're not going to get anything like the same experience.

PROS

- Great price, much cheaper than getting a DH enabled receiver.

- Great for gaming (and probably also other 5.1 sources like movies). It really is night and day compared to using headphones without this device, especially for FPS games like Halo 3 and Bioshock where directionality of sound really does matter. Creates a very smooth "out of your head" soundfield, can be a life saver in Halo online. Very easy on the ears. Initially I found myself taking the headphones off to check my surround speaker system wasn't accidentally turned on!

CONS

- 2 channel music - just ok. Certainly takes the music "out of your head", but quality/detail does suffer IMO, particularly the higher frequencies (some 'ringing'?). May not be as noticable with less revealing headphones?

- Battery operated (does NOT accept a power supply, contrary to one other review here). Eats batteries (approx couple of hours with 2 AA alkalines?). Would be nice if it had a DC in socket for non-mobile use. Not the end of the world though - NiMh rechargables are pretty cheap these days...

The JVC SU-DH1 is a very simple, elegant product: it provides full 5.1-channel surround sound through a set of standard headphones. And it works very well: the surround experience is just as enjoyable through headphones, without disturbing others. Thanks to this product, I can now enjoy movies late at night -- at full volume levels -- without having to worry about disturbing my neighbors.

The only downside to this product is that it consumes batteries very quickly. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing a set of NiMH rechargeable batteries, preferably with a "quick" (15-minute) charger. I bought a Duracell 15-minute charger and a set of four NiMH batteries, and they work very well in this JVC.

Absolutely amazing! I use it for music and talk shows. Even though the talk shows are recorded in mono, it still adds incredible sound processing. Friends are also amazed by the realistic 3D sound environment. I'm totally hooked and find listenting to regular stereo or mono not very enjoyable. My son keeps borrowing it for use with his PC video games. The sound difference with PC video games is unbelievable!

I'm a HUGE proponent of Dolby Headphone processing. I have the Pioneer Wireless SE-XB1 headphone set at home and I feel comfortable in saying they are the single best tech purchase I have ever made.

That being said, this box does perform the Dolby Headphone process, but the output is low volume and seems to lack frequency range. I tried several sources both analog stereo and digital and several headphone on the other end. The digital is obviously a bit better because it is true 5.1, but still the low end is lacking no matter what headphones I use.

I'm going to use it mostly between my MP3 player and headphones just to play stereo music. I realize I'm not using the device to its fullest this way, but I actually bought it specifically for that. Once I started using DH on my laptop's music player, PowerDVD, I just can't go back to plain stereo in headphones ever again.

If you don't HAVE to have a wireless Dolby headphone then this is a very good alternative. I had some nice headphones to begin with and the Sony headphones I already had Sony MDR-DS3000 Infrared Wireless Digital Surround Headphones were good for the job but had some drawbacks, especially sound quality.

I have the Beyerdynamic DT 880 headphones and they sound great with this surround sound adapter. You are not going to get sound in front and behind you etc. like true Dolby but it does sound very spacial. Don't use it for just listening to music though...

Get some good rechargeable batteries and they last for 4+ movies before they are completely drained. I use the analog connection because the digital connection was not loud enough (very high impedance headphones, doh!). There is no difference in sound quality unless you are like one of those audiophiles who think for example the sound changes with new headphones with "burn-in"(!?) Just enjoy the sound/music. It sounds great with either connection.

If you are thinking of using this for a laptop get a software alternative for much less...no need to have this thing hanging around you.

So this is a great (low cost) solution for surround spacial sound without disturbing those around you. Sometimes I just double check to make sure the speakers are not still on!

This device produces dolby analog sound when connecting it to your portable device but does not produce digital 5.1 sound unless you connect it to a dvd player with dolby/dts inputs using fiber optic cable with a 3.5mm jack adapter which I finally found packaged with a fiber optic cable at Wal-Mart. Since then I have been enjoying watching my DVDs in 5.1 sound all channels going through in my headphones to produce less noise at work and when I have a condo/apartment.

Great item but do recommend rechargeable batteries if you watch more than 2 films a day which I do!

A great unit but I have to correct several comments about the lack of a transfomer input. It does have an input for a transformer and JVC makes such a unit. You may find an alternate however.

I purchased this item from AudioCubes of Japan, since the items on Amazon didn't have the external power adapter available (and it was more expensive on Amazon).

Anyway, if you watch movies (DVDs or MP4s) on your computer, you will be blown away by the audio quality. I have a Mac Mini and connected this thing with an optical audio cable (mini optical connectors) and then plugged in my Bose Quiet Comfort headphones. Holy Crap... it really does sound like you are in a movie theater. My Mac is my new home theater.

This box correctly distinguishes source input (i.e, Dolby Digital AC3, Dolby Pro Logic II) and lets you select from various modes (Movies, Music, Headphone virtualization). Be sure to enable Digital Out in the DVD player on your Mac - I'm sure the PC has a similar setting. Even with iTunes videos using Dolly PL-II, the sound is incredible, but iTunes doesn't enable AC3 pass-thru.

Again, if you watch movies with headphones on a Mac, you need this box. For newer PCs, you may already have Dolby Digital decoding --> Dolby Headphone Virtualization. But add noise canceling headphones and you will never leave your chair. I am going to gain weight with this new setup :(

-- Ken