What did you decide for headphones?
My final word on the Kinyo's are they are impressive for DVDs, pretty good for gaming, and good/mediocre for music but I have several caveats.
For gaming, I can't give a complete impression. I never did get 5.1 working fully on my generic sound card. I believe this is partly due to the fact that the WDM drivers don't produce any sound at all so I'm using antiquated VxD drivers (I'm talking Windows 98SE here).
The sound direction queues are there but I can't say it's much better than a good set of stereo headphones.
The sound is very dynamic. These are not "layed-back" headphones and this IS GOOD for gaming. However, without the .1 in my 5.1 sound card. I am unable to use LFE. (I'm asking again, "Are 5.1 sound cards supposed to produce LFE in games?")
For music, at first the Kinyos were terrible but then I discovered multiple problems (and resolved them), some Kinyo's and some mine.
First, there were cable problems. The center channel and the right surround channel were crossed on one set.
Next, is another cabling problem. The Kinyo headphones use a mini-DIN connector to connect to the amplifier module (or rather headphone pre-amp). A straight adapter is provided should one wish to use these headphones like normal stereo headphones, that is without a pre-amp. Unfortunately the adapter splits a stereo signal into all the drivers in the headphones. (There are three in each ear by the way, front, surround, and center/sub). Splitting the signal just sounds awful though. Sounds very "phasey".
Avoiding the stereo headphone adapter and going with the ampfier module but using only Front-in is the way to use these headphones in stereo mode. Done this way they sound very good. This does, however, elimate a convenience factor and makes these headphone not for portable use (not that full sized cans are very portable anyway).
Then there are all the quirks.
-unwieldy 18-ft cord (maybe some people will like this).
-surround channel has limited bandwidth. Cuts off the high frequencies, reminicent of Dolby Prologic surrounds, but this should be handled by the decoder/sound card. Doing it in the headphone/pre-amp is not optimal for use with Dolby Digital/DTS sources (just my opinion, maybe I'm wrong about this).
-center/sub channels are mono even though there is one driver for each of two ears. Being mono sounds obvious but in headphones this kills the stereo separation for stereo sources. IMO, these headphones sound best with a receiver/decoder/sound card configured 4.1 not 5.1.
- The foam covering the drivers kills the high frequencies. I removed the foam. I hope this not a mistake but I don't care. The highs are now much more extended though reticent to my ears. Reminds me of non-metalic dome tweeters of loudspeakers, a little on the warm side kind of sound.
- lack of adequate documentation. Good cabling instructions are provided but how does one configure 5.1 properly with headphones? What are the proper time delays or does one just use 0 ms? (I'm using 0 ms for fron and maximum for surrounds). What is the correct level for LFE? My HT reciever only allows 0 dB and -10 dB. The former is too much and the latter seems too little. (O db makes the headphones litterally dance on my head. Way too real!)
In conclusion, if one is willing to work at it, these headphones sound pretty good. They definitely are wonderfully novel when playing DVDs. Supporting low frequency effects (LFE) really does add to the movie viewing experience. Music is passible.
<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b>