DMAS audio review

Agreed, you purchased the DMAS version of the 8KX, it has to work or else it cannot live up to the product description and thus must be replaced.

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I think Pimax is caught between a rock and a hard place here. Thereā€™s an issue with early production 8KXā€™s, and this wasnā€™t revealed until much later when the DMAS shipped.

I donā€™t see how Pimax could possibly remedy this issue by RMAā€™ing every affected 8KX. Whether or not they should, it surely isnā€™t a practical solution. Having to replace entire production runs is a nightmare scenario for companies that can put them out of business.

I think Pimax initially started replacing 8KXā€™s that had this problem, came to the realization that all early production units have the same issue, and realized they couldnā€™t continue replacing them all.

I donā€™t see any way out for them except to say theyā€™re sorry and offer money back for the DMAS. There simply isnā€™t any other option available to them.

The KDMAS is arguably better anyway. I have both the DMAS and the KDMAS myself. My 8KX (which is newer production) is able to run either one with no problems. After a lot of testing, I put the DMAS back in its box.

So to me, itā€™s a little odd to see people so upset over not being able to downgrade their audio from what they already have. I think if they actually got their wish, most of them would go back to the KDMAS after a little while anyway.

Seriously. You guys are not actually missing out. The DMAS isnā€™t that great.

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@Sargon I do understand the issue here, and I understand that giving a new 8kx to all is hard for Pimax.
But I bought DMAS version, and I payed fat money for it. If I knew that, I would buy basic sound at zero additional cost. Full refund for DMAS without questioning is bare minimum what I expect. Additional Voucher for Pimax store would be better, and from my point of view it would be fair.

Avoiding problem from Pimax side just make me sad and mad.

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I do think the same way as WKrs that the unit was bought as a whole (8KX + DMAS). I am in the same boat. However, after testing the DMAS for a while I have found out that I prefer to use my DT990 pro headphones ,which fit quite nicely under the MAS, instead of the DMAS. Vey much better audio quality and it feels a bit more like having a helmet on as I mostly play racing or flight sims with 8KX. Iā€™ll try to get the switch to KDMAS just to have some integrated headphones to go along when Iā€™ll eventually try to sell the 8KX. Not quite what I ordered but I think itā€™ll be the easiest way to get rid of this problem and be happy with it.

They offered me to test the new firmware which should have cured the problem. Indeed the whine was gone with it but then again the new firmware produced more problems to the sound that made it unusable. Mostly the abrupt volume changes.

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Itā€™s the principle of things and how you are treated when something isnā€™t right. This could happen again with the 12k and would you be happy about it after spending 2000+ usd ? No one cares when nothing is broke.

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I have now received the KDMAS as a fix to the high pitched whine problem. The bad news is that it didnā€™t fix the whine. The sound is still there with the KDMAS but now it is slightly lower in pitch and a bit louder. I tried it with and without the y-splitter cable. Has anyone else had this kind of experience?

Of course the support is notified of this situation so weā€™ll see what they are offering next.

@sydost that happened to me after switching from dmas to other headphones; I could still hear wine in backgroung, even after many restarts. Cca 1 week later it just stopped.

Somebody wrote you have to disconnect pimax cables when switching audio, but I didnā€™t try that.

OK so itā€™s only been 9 months but I have finally received a replacement 8KX and a few weeks later replacement DMAS, the high pitched whine is gone, and everything is as expected. Getting to this point with support wasā€¦ far from frictionless, but got there in the end.

Iā€™m using the DMAS with the KDMAS earcups using 3d printed extenders and the following settings to get the sound I like most:
image

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What sound settings please ? I see a graph with numbered circles but do not understand what that is representing.

Also my 8kxDMAS came already with KDMAS ear cups included and they fit the DMAS speakers without need of extenders.

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Lol, I got unclear message that EU repair site Marseilles is not in game any more, it is only Sweden after sales. Is there a ā€œmaintenance serviceā€ or not, I will see in a few days.

Itā€™s almost the same experience for meā€¦ I told them firmly that a real solution are to replace the HMD. but as it works for me with the KDMAS they regard the ticket as solvedā€¦

I just gave upā€¦

at least except for the wining in the DMAS I find the sound quality better in the KDMAS compared with the DMASā€¦ but still my 8KX do not work as intendedā€¦ and I still had to pay extra TAX to receive the DMAS to start with as it was not send from EU office for some reasonā€¦

but now I do not know as the 12K are on the horizonā€¦ but then again Iā€™m considering to trade in my 5K+ instead and keep the 8KX as a backup if possibleā€¦ so in that case it would be nice to have the new revision of the 8KX without the whining problem.

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I did find a solution for not only the defective 8kX units with the buzz defect that also works on the original headsets. A small amp that can be wired to a usb connector for power that can power speakers at iirc 2ohm 4ohm and 8ohm. Connected to the left output on the headset. If you use a counterweight a usb power bank can be used to power instead og headset usb. It outputs 3w+3w.

However pimax should not have closed the ticket without replacing the defective headset imho. @PimaxQuorra

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I got another 8kx test firmware, apparently the 8kx has no buzz sound with DMAS.
Well, there is no buzzing, but again it is not acceptable:

  1. the sound loudness is about 50% from regular headphones (or from DMAS with previous firmware).

  2. Also there is a strange effect where loudness goes up or down sometimes, depending of what I listen. It is some kind of loudness autocorrection enabled.
    When watching movies the effects (i.E. engine sounds, traffic, shooting, explosions, crushing thingsā€¦) will be suddenly much louder, and speech much quieter that normal. Often there is just one headphone suddenly louder, sometimes left, sometimes right, and sometimes booth. The worst part is that ā€œautocorrectionā€ is inconsistent, and it sounds just like drunk audio guy is constantly pushing volume high-low-high-low.

No go.

EDIT:
Small update: after several restarts, now the sound level is loud again, but sound is interrupted, sometimes going down in volume, sometimes up. It is not useful as is.

I think sometimes I can still hear buzzing noise, but for moments;

it is definitely like filter which turns volume up for a lot of sounds, and then reduce volume a lot when is more quiet.

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that ā€™s strange. Can you PM you ticket#?
So I can take a look at it with the technician.

Sincerely.

thank you for jumping in, but there is no need; after 9 months (yes my DMAS ticket is 9 months open) of patiently trying everything what pimax technitians proposed, there is no way that my 8kx unit works with DMAS headphones. I am so tired of this issue. I gave up, I will get refund for my DMAS and that is it.

Still, it is not fair from pimax to sell 2 pieces of hardware that suppose to work together but they do not, and then not to admit that problem exist, but prolong this torture to infinity.

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I have my 2nd Pimax 8KX DMAS for 3 or 4 weeks now. First headset had trouble with faulty tracking device internally and was replaced, turnaround took about 4 weeks.

I really like the sound from the DMAS Headphones, better than my Reverb G2 however the Volume levels are a problem as it is definitely only about 50 to 60 % of the level I believe it should be at. It is just too soft and maybe they need to boost its volume via firmware or software. Also I notice in some race sims it will blank out for a second or so at odd times which is annoying.

The main thing about Pimax which really annoys me is that problems like this sre not properly acknowledged and there is no indication of whether the relevant Engineers are aware of or working towards fixing it. This erodes any confidence in the ability of Pimax the Company to produce high tech gear a customer may feel confident to invest in going forward.

I find myself torn as I love the 8KX yet these niggling issues make me question whether I want to buy anything else from them seeing they do not propetly fix the current gen problems. I know I am not alone with this concern about Pimaxā€¦ but do they care !?

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I think Pimaxā€™s solution to the audio problems of the 8KX is the 12K.

The 8KX uses the stock Windows audio drivers, and so Pimax has no control over them. There are issues they canā€™t fix because itā€™s not their drivers.

On the 12K, Pimax has full control over the audio, and this is something theyā€™ve talked about in interviews. They claim the audio situation is now very good on the 12K because they have full control over it.

To be sure, Pimax could have made its own audio drivers for the 8KX under Windows. But I think whatā€™s happened there is the DMAS was a very late addition to the aging 8KX. So Pimax was faced with the prospect of developing a new proprietary audio driver when they knew the 12K would be coming fairly soon. So does it make sense for them to produce a new audio driver for Windows that would only live in a short window of time before being obsoleted? They chose not to. And theyā€™re just living with the ramifications of that until the 12K.

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Sure, maybe, I donā€™t know but if that is entirely true and I have to doubt it, then that is an extremely Lame excuse.

The design of the DMAS headset would have incorporated necessary components to operate correctly with Windows sound drivers. They were not reinventing the wheel and there are literally 1000ā€™s of 100% compatible PC sound drivers/speakers out there and that is all a set of headphones is.

No, the likely answer is they were not 100% tested fully before going to market and no resources have been allocated to fine tune them since release, using Windows Sound SDK already available to them.

Either way it could & should be fixed as the DMAS headsets alone sell on Amazon at a premium price.

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Nope. The SMAS and DMAS waa originally going to be released for KS headsets. But they realized the audio amp in the first hmds would not be sufficient to drive them. So they created the kdmas on ear headphones. The 8k+ and 8kX received new Audio chips specifically to be able to drive the SMAS and DMAS.

Pimax was considering a custom audio driver during the Beta test of the DMAS; but seems to have ignored the feedback from the beta test and released as is. Including knowing about the reported 1.2k hum that some original 8kX have. To which there answer was to release the revised 8kX and package the older model with a downgraded crippled MAS that can only use the kdmas module.

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To be sure, I donā€™t consider it an excuse. From a customer perspective, I couldnā€™t care less what their engineering challenges are in terms of being any excuse for product performance.

You should look up discussions about the known problems with Microsoftā€™s USB audio drivers outside of Pimax products. There is significant history there, particularly on the microphone side. Youā€™d think that Microsoft would address these issues in such commonly used drivers, but for whatever reason they havenā€™t addressed major issues there for years.

Iā€™m not saying that lack of having their own driver is the only issue with Pimaxā€™s audio on the 8KX. Rather Iā€™m pointing out that by not having their own driver, there are problems that Pimax has no way to fix. It would require Microsoft to fix it, and Microsoft isnā€™t.

Thatā€™s my point about it though. At the time Pimax was considering whether to actually go ahead with making custom audio drivers, they were already well into development of the 12K. Which means they knew at that time that theyā€™d be engaging in a significant effort that would be obsoleted by their next product. This was surely a heavy factor in deciding whether to write custom audio drivers or not.

So while their beta testers were mystified that Pimax ignored this feedback at the time, in hindsight I think itā€™s clear now why Pimax decided not to.

In fact, more generally, I suspect that the DMAS was primarily designed for the 12K and merely adapted to the 8KX even though the idea of the DMAS was conceived much earlier and was originally intended for the P2 headsets. That might also explain why the speakers are positioned too far away from the userā€™s ears on the 8KX. Iā€™ll bet you that the same DMAS design lands at the right distance when mounted on the 12Kā€™s head strap.

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