Topic: Should i get a HDTV or use a PC Monitor for Wii U Gaming?

@skywake
It's different in Australia then, I guess. When I was trying to figure out what type of screen I should go with(and I was willing to pay up to $500 USD), I seriously considered buying a monitor, but they were all far too small and expensive in comparison to HDTVs for what I was going to use it for, which was home theater. I also needed something that supported antenna. I totally get the appeal of monitors, especially for stuff like Wacom screens, because that's basically the only place you're going to get something like that, and HDTVs won't do that, obviously.

The screen size does matter, otherwise you'd be able to get a bigger screen with <1ms or less, no problem. The entire reason why they can get can usually eliminate lag in monitors, is because of how small they are. Try getting <1ms of lag in monitor 39" or bigger, and things start to get outrageously expensive. Look: http://www.newegg.com/Large-Format-Displays/SubCategory/ID-633
A bigger monitor with 6.5-8ms of lag starts to go into $800+ range, so now figure that you can get a 32-48" with just as low of a response time, antenna support, built in speakers, DTS technology, most if not all of the other features monitors have, and for half the price($400).
The only reason why you would look into a monitor after all that considered, is if you want a Wacom(touch) screen, or possibly better color representation; something along those lines.

read my post again

Once more, the OP was talking about being at headphone cord length. OP was more than likely going to be sitting in something like a bedroom and likely at something not-unlike a desk. For that sort of use screen sizes above 30" don't make much sense at all especially ones that aren't even 1080p. In this sort of scenario a monitor makes a lot more sense because it's generally cheaper and exists at higher resolutions in smaller sizes with a higher level of quality. The HDTV market has all but given up on screen sizes bellow 32".

And sure, for the average console owner if they're looking at a TV to get? They should actually get a TV. Purely because most of the time the Wii U will be sitting in a family or loungeroom where gaming will be but one of its uses. You'll be playing the games sitting in a comfortable chair 2-3m away from the screen. In that case size matters a lot more than resolution. You'll be much more likely to be looking for a screen in the $800-1500AU price range rather than the $200-500AU price range. You'll probably walk out with a screen that's between 42" and 55". For the people who want that sort of size? Yeah, a TV will make more sense. But the OP wasn't going to use the screen like that. For people like the OP a monitor is a better option.

@skywake
Well, like I said, apparently HDTVs are cheaper in America or something. I don't even think Best Buy is a store in Australia, and their brand of TV is specifically the one I'm talking about that is cheap as heck while beating the monitors I've seen. If you want to pay more for a smaller screen, then be my guest. If the whole desktop setup is what is keeping you from getting a bigger HDTV for the same price as a smaller monitor, then I would move the hell away from the desk and get the bigger picture Besides, it's not like a dual screen monitor setup is impossible. It would totally make alot of sense to me if someone had a Wacom touch monitor, then paired it with a gigantic, low lag, antenna enabled HDTV, then hook up a mad a home theater system for your PC and whatever else to call it a day. Then you'd have both setups in one, without sacrificing the big screen or the smaller screen.

If anything, PC people almost never have a good sound setup. Those little computer speakers and headphones can only do so much, before you're missing out on louder, clearer, and more capable sound, but people tend to only focus on the screen. If I sat far way from an HDTV and wanted headphone sound, I'd find a way to get my headphones to run via bluetooth or just get a cord extender. It's not like there's only one way to do stuff. It's my opinion that it would be fairly limiting to reject a larger screen, just because your face is going to be glued to the screen at 1.5-2 feet away. That's missing the point of having a bigger screen in the first place.

@SCAR392
You're talking BS. I did point out early on that I was only talking about decent brand screens because I wouldn't touch something from a home brand or other similarly cheap brand. You can get a cheap 32" TV from someone like Soniq for $170AU, you can get a 48" one for $500AU. But I wouldn't because they're crap. In the same way that I could have directed the OP to the cheapest TN monitors. But I didn't, because those screens are cheap and nasty and the OP specifically said they were after an IPS panel.

As for sound, well talk about a red herring. Again the OP said they had a decent set of headphones and I trust that they'll more than likely do a better job than any sub $1000 TV speakers will do. And yes the sound will be better from a decent sound system than it will from cheap $10 PC speakers. However there's nothing stopping you from hooking up a decent sound system to that sort of setup. Most modern sound systems have HDMI pass-through, the ones that don't could be tricky with a lot of monitors the Wii U given it has no optical-out. For PC users at most it's an extra $10 for a SPDIF bracket if they happen to have a PC without it built in. It's a moot point.

As for the "well that defeats the point of a big screen". Well yeah, and? As I've said repeatedly the OP said they were going to use this with headphones. It's a perfectly reasonable way to play game. I've sat at my desk with my 22" monitor and relatively cheap $60 headphones to play some cool little indie platforms using the Wii U Pro Controller. It's a decent experience. I've personally setup my Wii U on a 46" screen (Sony, $800AU) in the family room because I see it as more of a "party console" but if I was only into the single player and online experience? I can see why you might want it in a different room.

@skywake
Ya, well the Insignia I have blows monitors of the same size out of the water. It's truth. You can say home cheapo brands are bullocks, but I don't think so, because of the reasons I said. It's basically the same as buying the store brand of cereal that is the same as name brand. It's the same deal, except applying to electronics.

As for sound, that was my point. I was just trying to say that you see more people caring about what display they have, rather than their audio systems, or even both. Being able to hear stuff better is just as important as trying to see stuff better.

Whatever you say, if you want to claim that then cool. However I'm certaintly not going to be getting a 32" sub 1080p screen to replace the 22" 1080p panel I have now when it dies. And I certainty won't be getting a generic or knock off brand one. IMO ~23" is a nice size for a personal screen at the ~1m-ish sort of distance and I'd personally rather a screen that went a bit above 1080p rather than one that was under. And clearly I'm not alone given that's the sort of pixel density panel that sells......

All of the no. I can tell you now that even the TEAC TVs I've gotten just as a spare "kitchen bench" sort of TV in the past have been garbage. I even have a Samsung panel that was at the real cheap end which is nowhere near as good as the slightly more expensive, same sized panel of around the same age also made by Samsung. Now I'd never go out and spend more than $500 on a monitor and I'd never spend more than $1500 on a TV but at the other end? You really do get what you pay for. It shows. But if you want to go running around trying to defend your purchasing decisions? Then cool. Just realise that that's what you're doing. It's the same old petty console wars but for TVs.

Also home brand consumables? Wow, you're even trumpeting that one. Yeah sometimes with some things it doesn't mean a lot. However some stuff the home brand is pure junk, the store brand tomato sauce for example just tastes like sugar. For a sauce or a pie though it's ok, I don't really care and if it is average I'll get the other one next time. For a TV or monitor? I expect that to be sitting there in that same spot for a good five years. Whether it's decent or not will make a material difference to how much I'll enjoy a great movie or a once in a generation game. I'm also going to have to look at it every, single, day and even worse it's hundreds of dollars I'm trusting them with. It's not the same at all.

No it wasn't, you just wanted to have a dig at the "PC gamers" for their horrible sound setups. Because you want to feel superior for some reason. The fact is that a really, really cheap TV set will have really, really cheap built in speakers. If people want to burn money on high end sound then they can and do. However they can just as easily do that for their desk or bedroom as they can for their home theatre. And as a general rule of thumb I'd argue that the average headphone gamer is getting better sound than the guy who's playing the game on the TV. Purely because for the price of even the most basic surround setup ($350AU) you can get Sennheiser Momentums with $50AU change.

@skywake
Damn, dude. You think I'm BSing you, defending my purchases, then trying to take a "dig" at PC gamers. If you aren't going to believe anything I say, then there's no point in discussing anything.

My HDTV is 1080p, so I don't know what you're talking about with the whole under 1080p thing. That's why I'm saying that if that is how things are in Australia, big freaking deal. You don't have to believe me that my HDTV is about as good as a name brand HDTV, but far cheaper. I agree that some store brand stuff sucks compared to the name brand. For example, I wouldn't buy Insignia brand speakers. They look like slightly bigger computer speakers, except they expect you to hook them up in a budget home theater system. I knew enough to avoid their speakers, but their HDTVs were fine for what else was around. I looked at HDTVs a couple times over before making a decision, and Insignia was basically the same damn thing as a Samsung. The only differences between the displays I looked at were general technological differences, like plasma, LED, or whatever else, and LED was the best, IMO, but that applies to ANYTHING. Other than that, it was basically as good as any LCD out there. I'd be sn idiot to pay $200 more for Samsung or whoever else, just for name brand. Insignia is made by a variety of manufacturers all the time, anyway. There are probably Toshiba parts in last year's model, but Sharp parts in this year's, for example. http://www.ask.com/technology/manufactures-insignia-televisio...
Even though Insignia is store brand, it has used parts from other HDTV companies, which would mean they had a deal in place with said name brand manufacturers to mix their parts for the cheapest setup.

For price of entry of a home theater system, it's debatble whether you get your money's worth, so you are right about that, but there is no question that it is higher quality than anything a headphone can provide. The way I see it, headphones are meant for portable device use, but never much for anything else. I'll use them for my 3DS, my phone, or possibly with off-TV play on the Wii U GamePad, BUT only if I don't have a surround sound setup to use. It doesn't make any sense at all to me why anyone would buy a good audio setup for $400+, then just slap on a pair of headphones.. I'm not saying this to take a "dig" at PC gamers or "feel superior". All I was trying to make part of the discussion was the audio part of a setup. If you don't care enough about your audio setup to get a good audio system going, then that's fine. That's your own deal, but you aren't going to be getting as good of an audio experience from headphones as you are from a good audio setup. That's just how things work, and if you consider that you'd be buying an HDTV for $500+, why wouldn't you do that for your audio setup?

PC monitor that way when your done with your game system you can turn on your pc.tv, unless you have loads of money then get one of those smart t'vs.

Well, except that most HDTVs have PC hookups(HDMI, VGA, DVI), and if you do have a PC hooked up to it, there isn't really much, if anything a smart TV can do that a PC is unable to do.

Or any other small device. (Roku / Apple TV / Amazon Fire TV etc etc).

The problem is the amount of misinformation around. (And for me the lack of an optical out on my current plasma which works much better over component than HDMI). My Wii U over component seems to work about the same as my PC over HDMI.

I am kind of coming around to the idea to having another TV just for the Wii U but I don't want to mess about be so much easier if you could just get exactly the same panel in a TV size with no post processing at all reasonably.

Well you say that, then you go on a long rant about how great your cheap screen is

See? I mean if you want to say that all screens are created equal then that's your bit but from personal experience I know that they're not. You said it yourself that even the reasonably trustworthy generics are different from year to year. Why would you suggest that people take that gamble when they're dropping hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a product that will easily last two gaming generations if not more? If you're that blind to the differences between panels that the "only difference" is if it's LCD, LED or Plasma? Then you have no right to be suggesting what panels people should get. You literally have no idea what you're talking about if that's the case.

I have two monitors on my desk made by the same company, I know that one is a better panel. I can see it with my own eyes and it's no illusion. And guess what? it's the non-LED backlit one that looks better. Not because it has a different backlight, if I only knew the specs I'd say the LED was better, but because it's a better panel. I also know that when I go to my sister's place her TV looks better than mine does even though both are LED backlit LCDs. So don't give me that "they're all the same" BS.

Well the fact is that you only have two ears. A good set of headphones will reproduce audio as good as a significantly more expensive surround setup. And sometimes, as gamers, we don't want to keep everyone awake in the early hours of the morning. I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that surround setups "always" sound better than headphones. Especially when you had to make a point that the cheap $300 ones, where the benefit of spending more on headphones slows to a crawl, are crap and shouldn't be brought up.

As for people not throwing as much money at sound well, sound is cheaper. I think I'm probably one of the rare oddities in that over the last couple of years I've spent about the same on audio, screens and networking. That's only because I pushed to upgrade all of them, spent a lot on Sonos gear, got a bargain TV and went for a top of the line network setup. ~$750-ish each. It's a case of do as I say not as I do. Because if someone came to me with $2000 and wanted to do the same? I'd tell them for the best experience they should spend $1500 on the TV and spend the rest on the network. Because unless you're risking going too cheap on the TV you can't get good audio into that budget. That's why people skimp on the audio.

@skywake
I didn't say all screens were all the same. I said that in this specific case, the store brand was just as good, and actually had a faster response time than any other, with better pixel/color management than alot of them. That was limiting the selection to LCD, only. I never said LED, plasmas, or whatever else are definitive. I said that the store brand LCD was basically just as good as the other LCD screens in the store, so it doesn't make sense to pay $200 more for brand names.

Well, I haven't ever heard a pair of headphones that meet or beat my audio system, so I know that's not true, and I've tried everthing I can get my hands on to test, whether it's Seinheiser, Sony, Polk, etc.. It's stereo vs. surround sound. You're right, we have 2 ears, but there are 2 speakers in stereo, and 6-9 in a 5.1-7.2 setup. You're ears are hearing 6-9 more audio outputs with a surround sound system, which includes more accurate reproduction based on placement, better highs/lows, etc, even though it depends largely on what type of speakers you have as well. Those aren't really options in headphones. They're leagues apart. I'm not saying headphones are useless either. There's the whole privacy and consideration thing, but also better sound clarity from what you would otherwise get from the device speakers.

Prices are different in Australia, like I've said like 3 times. Unless you're going 4K, it would be totally easy to get an awesome HDTV, audio setup, and decent networking for $2000, here in America. I don't even bother with networking at all, though. I have a router at 9mbs. It worls for everything I need it to.

Then you're talking about one specific panel that you happened to come across which you feel personally is better than everything else. It's still one hell of a gamble. I just don't think that one purchase warrants this relentless barrage of bad advice. Again, the OP said they wanted to know if a monitor was a good idea. It is a good idea, they should get one. Asus make some of the best panels, their IPS ones are good. Thread over. However you decided it was a good time to go on a rant about how much better your cheapo TV is than anything else ever. Well nice, I spent $800 on my 46", 1080p Sony. I don't laugh at people who were idiots for spending more than I did. It was a good deal, I grabbed it and only now are prices catching upto it. I also know that even at the time if I had spent twice as much I could have gotten a significantly better panel. But for $800? It works, looks decent and is reliable. But there are better panels and deals than just Sony HDTVs on sale.

Yeah, BS. It doesn't work like that. Unless you're one of those people who really wants to feel the vibrations in your seat when the bomb goes off it makes zero difference. The only real difference is that a surround sound setup can be enjoyed by multiple people. I mean, personally, I don't think my $300 Sonos speakers (i.e. $300 per speaker, solidly built, high end stuff) sound that much better than my $60 headphones. I mean they have more guts, they can fill a room, they have all the cool features and they're a fantastic product. But music sounds more-or-less just as good through my headphones. Infact if anything my headphones create a bigger sound-stage because the Sonos gear, while multi-room, is inherently mono. Infact I have quite a few more expensive sound setups that I've tried that actually sound worse than my headphones. So please, don't hate on headphone users. Not everyone buys Beats.

The prices are more or less the same for this sort of gear so get off it. I was just saying that if someone had $2000 to spend they'd be better off not doing what I did and spending ~$750 on networking, sound and visuals. They'd get a better experience by spending most of it on the TV so they could get a really nice, high end 60" LED backlit panel with fantastic features, colours and image processing. I don't think it's really worth spending money on sound until you're getting upto around $1000 and upto about $1500-ish you're still getting more for your money spending it on the screen.

And BTW, you can do more on your network than just "share the internet". I could just as easily go on a long rant about how people don't put enough emphasis on their network setup and instead spend too much money on disposable gadgets. Then they whine about how horrible the experience is. Seriously, how many of the problems even just for the Wii U that people whine about are related to network issues? Now try and push a 1080p video and see how those problems pile up. Heaven forbid you want to stream a 4K video locally....

@skywake
Yup. My cheapo store brand LCD HDTV beat the name brand LCDs. I don't see why that's such an insult or something... I honestly like LED screens better. I just didn't have enough money for anything better at the time for everything else I wanted to buy, so I settled with the LCD I still have and I won't care about upgrading until 4K gets cheaper and probably better. So, I guess it would have made more sense to say that the cheapo brand HDTV beat the other cheapo brand name HDTVs that were a step below, right before you get to the über expensive sets with 3D and stuff, but I still wanted a low lag HDTV. That's why I bought the one I did.

As for audio, I'm still sticking with a high end receiver and some decent to high quality speakers. There are features surround sound setups have that headphones don't have. You can get that stereo effect to work across all your speakers if you do it right, and adjusting the crossover frequency can make a huge difference. You can't get the same effect with headphones, and that is 100% fact, and vice versa. At the end of the day, there aren't speakers in front of you or behind you, where some of the data can't be properly represented. It comes close, and that's good enough for most people, and that's ideal for completely portable devices, because home audio isn't even really an option anymore.
IMO, the Sonos speakers you have are more designed to be modern and practical. I'm not entirely sure how they work, but I figure you assign a location for your setup to each speaker. I think the wireless speakers are cool, but I still feel like I'd get more from wired. I don't have any criticisism for that, because the form factor and wireless capability is ideal for speakers, even if it isn't entirely necessary. That's the direction I think speakers are going towards. That's the thing, there is always something that one thing or the other has, that the other doesn't, but it would be better together. That's how I feel about the Sonos type speakers and the traditional wired audio setup. I'm not sure if you know this, but you have to point all your speakers to the center of your general listening area, all around ear height, and every symmetric speaker (L/R, SL/SR, RL/RR) needs to be the same length apart. That might help some of the mono turn into stereo. Like I said, though, I don't get entirely how those speakers work, but you can probably make some adjustments to make them sound better.

I honestly don't really get what you mean about networking, though. I can stream 1080p with a wireless 9mbs connection. I honestly don't know what else I be asking my network to do. I've streamed video from my PC to my Xbox 360/PS3 before, and that was pretty crappy, if that's what you're talking about. It would have to load things locally.

Sony XBR CRT

@SCAR392
It being a good deal at the price at the time doesn't have much weight at all. That can be the case while at the same time higher end gear performs better. At the end of the day every time I have gone for a cheaper panel, usually from a cheaper brand, it has been a lower quality product. Every time I've had one that has died early it has been a cheaper product. I tell people to spend a bit more on their displays from experience having been burned on cheap displays. Plus the fact that every time I've spent a bit more the panels have been better and lasted longer. And again, you're going to be experiencing all of your media through this one portal for years so it's worth getting a better one.

As for the audio stuffs. Well for a start watch this with headphones: http://youtu.be/IUDTlvagjJA
Still believe stereo speakers can't reproduce surround? As I said, you have two ears and if you can position the audio right above them you only need two speakers for full surround. The only thing you can't ever get get is the physical sensation from heavy bass which personally I'm not that into anyway. As for the Sonos stuff, well that's another story. It doesn't work in the way I think you think it works. I don't use it as a surround setup I use them to fill the house with music. It's like a modern version of having a radio playing an FM radio station in two rooms. The reason it doesn't have as wide a soundstage is because I only have one speaker in one room and a second on in another. Plus when you're walking around where is "left"? Where the TV is? What about when you turn around?

On networking... well ok, if you think 9Mbps total and only wireless is fine then that's your bit. I however am quite happy with the fact that I can push files between machines at whole multiples of 100Mbps. Or the fact that I can download a 1080p movie from iTunes (strip the DRM) and then copy it to a network share with ease. When I want to stream it? It plays instantly even if it's a file that averages 15Mbps and peaks at 40Mbps. Or the fact that I can put a second access point at a far corner and actually connect to the wireless out the back. It's a nice thing to have and the fact that I don't ever have to sit and wait for my local file transfers? That's worth more than better audio.

@skywake
I was just throwing some ideas out there. It's still totally possible to get a cheap screen that can perform very well, whether it be value of money, a sale, or just coincidental. The last being the least common, which is what happened to me for that specific $350-500 price range. Any higher than that, and the response time and video features started to be a bit much for my tastes.

I tried that virtual barber shop demo. I wasn't particularly impressed, TBH. The virtual surround tricks STILL work better on my audio receiver than my headphones. I understand stereo can still have decent surround effects, but there are physically speakers there to do that in a surround setup, and you can do the reverse if your surround sound speakers are setup correctly. You can make sound like it's coming from all over the place with multiple speakers. The center channel is setup to meet the surrounds similar to how stereo works, like a triangle, and stereo is still doing its audio tricks at the same time. That's why people tend to think that 7.1 setups are pointless, because the surround speakers in a 5.1 setup can create a stereo effect behind you where the rear speakers are in a 7.1 setup. 7.1 speakers aren't nearly as utilized for support reasons, but it's still possible, and TBH, the only reason why I bought a 7.2 setup, was because it was $50 more than the 5.1 model. I do get alot of bass from the 2 subs I have setup, but that wasn't my specific goal. I had one sub, then I ended up getting the 7.2 setup and throwing another matching sub on the opposite side, just because I could.

The Sonos is a pretty different type of setup. They're trying to eliminate audio receivers, which is technically ideal, but they currently lack the type of features that tweak the setup. I thought you had the full surround setup with Sonos, which they do offer, but it costs $2000+ for a setup that would cost around $600-1000+ for a wired 7.2 setup, and that's only if you budget. I'm not one of those people that needs to have Klipch, Polk, or Bose. Those are generally the people that overpay for that sort of thing, taking wired setups up to $1000+. That's why I was wondering how the Sonos surround setup was.

I was just wondering what kind of networking you were talking about. I generally think of internet, but not local to local. I don't really have a need or want for that, otherwise, I get what you're saying. I don't have a PC, and I'm not transferring things locally. I only tried it on Xbox 360 from PC a few times. My audio receiver streams from PC, and Xbox One will eventually support that, but that's as far as it has gone for me.

@SCAR392
Well my $800 set I got as they were moving to a new model. It wasn't 3D and it lacked the "Smart TV" features but for the price for 46" at that time I wasn't going to complain. As I said this was a few years ago and only now are the brand-name screens at that size hitting that price on a regular basis. I know the regular price for that screen was hundreds more than that at the time, I only saw that deal once. I just don't think it's a good idea to say to people they should ignore the monitor option purely because you happened to get a cheap HDTV that you were happy with. One you claim is the cats pyjamas just because. Which is why I called BS as I was directing the OP to a $200AU-ish 23" IPS monitor from Asus. It's a known quantity with all the required inputs and at a decent price. The monitor option will always win out in this particular use-case where a larger screen offers little benefit.

As for your cynicisim regarding the barber shop demo. Well does it work or not? It works for me, I can hear that the guy is moving from behind me, I can hear the other dude in the corner, I can hear the movement of the scissors. What more do you need? Yes, 'proper' surround also works and two speakers on a shelf doesn't do surround, no questioning that. But headphones can also do surround. Again, because we only have two ears and our brains calculate location by working out the differences between sound from both ears. It's the same way that the 3DS works with its 3D. You don't need to literally carve out a physical 3D object in space in order to see 3D, you just need to present a different image to each eye. With open speakers the channels tend to merge so you need to pad it out with more speakers. With headphones? The channels are well and truly isolated so it works. End of discussion.

With the Sonos, well. I don't have them setup as surrounds because I only have two. I have once or twice set them up as a stereo pair but IMO that kinda defeats the point. The whole value of them is their ability to play the same thing in different rooms so when you walk between those spaces you get the same thing. They're music speakers primarily. That said I was looking at the soundbar thing, which is another $1000, but if I did get it I would be using it as just a soundbar. Frankly I think a non-surround sound that you can hear from anywhere if you want to is much better/cooler than being able to get a surround experience when you sit in the right spot. Just don't say that headphone users are just cheap when it comes to sound. Because I don't.

Networking... there's more than just the internet. Setup a NAS and you'll start to hammer your LAN. Before you know it even 100Mbps isn't quite good enough and the powerline and wireless solutions introduce a whole bucket of buffering and latency. If I have a movie on a disk that I can physically walk to I shouldn't have to be waiting for it to buffer when I play it. It's probably overkill but again, I think improving your LAN is way more important then putting money into audio. Clearly I did both, I wouldn't be without either, but I do know which one has been more valuable.

I don't think you have a proper headphone setup. If you were to try the virtual barbershop with Sennheiser HD600, a Schiit Modi/Magi stack, and a decent source you would be vary surprised.

@skywake
Fair enough,

I just listened to the barber shop thing again. It's alot better than I recall. I think I was using a crappy pair of headphomes, and I didn't bother to try it again, but now I see what you all are talking about. One thing to note, however, is that not everything is recorded like that to work that way for headphones. Go try to play ZombiU, Child of Light, Deus Ex, or whatever else supports off-TV play. Those games only support surround sound via PCM 5.1.

If you have a PS4 or the Xbox One stereo headphone adapter, you can try the same thing. I'm pretty sure getting surround sound via headphones on game consoles is still restricted to buying one of the Dolby headsets. Then in order to get voice chat with the surround sound, you still have to plug in the headphones to the stereo input on the controller, from where you can would get stereo, anyway. The binaural recordings used to run surround sound through your headphones, like the demos, basically don't exist outside of those demos.