Big oof. The dmas is better than the kdmas.
Off-ear => AR
On-ear => VR
But thatās just my opinion. Unlike others I donāt think everybody should like only what I like.
I understand that not everybody cares about immersion, but some of us do care.
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I totally agree itās individual choice 
Iām used to on-ear and happy with it. But also intrigued to try off-ear, as most of the reviews I have seen indicate the Index is currently the gold standard for ābuilt inā audio quality and comfort. I would be interested to hear the opinion from forum users who have the Index and tried both.
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It canāt ship with premium audio, if itās not available to attach to the 8K-X headset. Thatās why it shipped with basic audio as there is no other option at the moment.
For DMAS upgrade all we do is order it, wait for it to be produced, then swap the speakers over by undoing two screws.
In the future, on the Pimax store, naturally there will be an option for Pimax customers to order their headsets with DMAS or KDMAS equivalent.
(I imagine once all Kickstarter products have been fulfilled, KDMAS will be renamed).
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This was already discussed above, including a slide that shows that this is not true. I think by now it is clear that this is a decision based on business and not technical considerations. I guess they want to introduce the straps more gradually, so at this time only one is available to be specifically ordered. Iām fine with waiting several more months for the KDMAS to be finalized.
For DMAS upgrade all we do is order it, wait for it to be produced, then swap the speakers over by undoing two screws.
I assume you mean KDMAS. I was just reading the thread MarkD linked to and it seems it will not be as simple. However even if it works the timeline Iām looking at now is: 1. Receive a SMAS in a month (with the headset). 2. Receive a DMAS some months later (that I payed for). 3. Order and receive a KDMAS in ??? months and pay for it. So Iāll pay for the strap twice and will stay for months with a headset I have no use for.
Folks, going by the frequency response chart, the high frequency response of the KDMAS is far worse than the DMAS, comparable to āaverageā quality headphones from cheap retail.
You donāt want the KDMAS unless you have to use it.
There is only one reason to desire the KDMAS - compatibility with older headset electronics. It is called Kickstarter Deluxe Modular Audio Strap (KDMAS) for a reason.
By the way, for small companies, the total cost of delivering decent speaker drivers can be expensive.
Personally, I was relieved to hear the DMAS speakers were designed to be used slightly off-ear. During long VR sessions, my ears would get a bit bruised from the OculusCV1 or the DAS speakers, and earbuds over enough days can become uncomfortable without any other option.
As for noise isolationā¦ I suspect the DMAS will have some noise isolation or at least will not broadcast the sound to the room as much as the SMAS. However, if this is really a problem for a decent number of users, there are aftermarket solutions.
Obviously, it is possible to add on some ear cups to the DMAS, or modify the mechanical mounts to make them on-ear, and it is nice that the MAS generally supports third-party headsets. A variety of noise-cancelling and earbud headsets exist with 30dB performance.
However, for those of you who really care about noise isolationā¦ a small battery powered amplifier can be used for noise cancellation. Just use nearby microphones as negative feedbackā¦
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@prinyo If the DAS audio works well for you, you can rather easily replace the DMAS speakers with the DAS speakers. That is what I might do in your situation.
The distortions and such have more to do with the face foam. Making sure you get more than one thickness of foam, or even getting the original pre-8kX foam, is your best chance to avoid such things.
The resolution is indeed a huge upgrade.
Wrong. KDMAS is a compatibility option for headsets that canāt use a DAS. While there may be a little more noise isolation as a side-effect, there is also much worse high-frequency audio quality.
Pimax might internally consider the KDMAS as a suboptimal solution overall. As a hardware designer myself, I can certainly see why it would not be fun for them to produce and ship any more of those than necessary.
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I highly disagree with the premise that the KDMAS is the ābest audio optionā.
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Correct 
That is my understanding too - the reason why they have provided this is different issue?
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Youāre missing out the main reason a lot of people want the KDMASā¦ on-ear!
Personally I donāt want on-ear, I love the index audio solution and looking forward to finding out how good the DMAS isā¦ however you canāt just discount that everyone has their own requirements and best effort isolating background noise is a popular one.
During the presentation, Kevin said KDMAS and DMAS were close, so concerning to hear that might not be true and youāve emphasised it as far worseā¦ I guess weāll start to find out how good KDMAS is in a couple of weeks or so.
For audio quality maybe, for someone who āneedsā on-ear itās the only option!
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Thatās assuming the DMAS is substantially off-ear, and that simply modifying the mounts for the DMAS if desired isnāt a better solution. I donāt care much, and AFAIK the gap spacing is not yet known, but I suspect people will find that having a large chunk of foam that size and a few millimeters away will do as much for noise isolation as would any other definition of āon-earā.
Keep in mind that at high frequencies, with incoming sound along the same plane, a foam pad is basically the same as a bunch of anechoic pyramids. At lower frequencies, nothing āon-earā is going to provide much noise isolation, short of a tight airtight seal or noise cancellation.
Best Audio is subjective to individual needs. Now if we want to talk best Audio the DMAS doesnāt cut it as there are far better audio headsets out there.
Best Audio has a variety of factors to consider even beyond freq charts. I for one have never gotten bruises from headphones. But have had discomfort fron in ear canal buds.
We know even with the Index it doesnāt isolate fully from environment. So unless you have a seperate quiet room it is not ideal for all.
The mediocre SMAS and the quality DMAS could also easily be used on the older models by a y cable and a headphone pre amp.
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Well itās all assumptions at this point as weāve not yet seen KDMAS or DMAS (at least not properly). But from what weāve been told the KDMAS and DMAS are close in audio, KDMAS is on-ear, and DMAS is off earā¦ with that info you equally canāt tell anyone whatās better or worse for an individual and their requirements.
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It is also a question of circumstances. For example in the apartment where I live Iām in the room that faces the street (a busy street with cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes). My housemate occupies a very quiet room that faces the garden inside, so in that room the off-ear solution would be OK. It is funny that I wanted the room facing the street because it is big and has space for comfortable room-scale VR.
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I added a disclaimer to that comment to say that it is a personal opinion based on the on-ear option.
What you are actually saying is that there is no good option for people like me that donāt want off-ear - all of the options are bad. And the only solution is to frankenstein the strap - the superhero DAS is here to help again.
I really hate the idea to once again rely on the DAS to save the day for the new 1000 euro headset, but leaving feelings like those aside the procedure for replacing the headphones doesnāt seem too easy for a clumsy person like me. But I guess somebody will design 3d printable fillers. However after reading all of this thread again I no longer know what I wantā¦
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Fairly simple, clever, and robust. Metal shims, and rubber shims. No destruction of any original hardware. No rewiring/soldering.
Replacing the rubber with a 3D printed part of flexible material would make the entire process take only a few minutes. With the correct dimensions, it would take all of five minutes to sketch the two rectangles in FreeCAD to model that part. I think it looks more complex because the writeup was so long.
And to what can fit on a VR headset. In-ear earbuds, and big over-ear earmuffs are both not good options to attach to a MAS - they would have to fit over it - and I personally despise the idea of putting on two headsets. Wearing one is uncomfortable and inconvenient enough.
The DMAS is not available yet. But I suspect it is at least very close to the best possible technology.
Debatable. At best, that would mean an āadapter cableā, which is custom assembly stuff. Many seem to be arguing already that Pimax has too many product lines both to manufacture and sell to customers. I can see why Pimax does not seem to want to go that route.
A separate noise cancelling upgrade kit would actually make much more sense, because as a product that would add real functionality. Since I have been working on similar hardware, it may be worth my while to offer such a product.
By the way, despite designing this computer specifically to maximize airflow and minimize noise, it is still louder than I like under full load. So I do appreciate the desire for noise isolation. But on all other counts it looks like the DMAS will be a good product, and if that turns out to be a really bad weakpoint, we can probably mitigate the problem.
I donāt understand the idea of āsomewhatā off-ear. It seems the idea is that the headphones need to out-shout the environment. But if you are playing an immersive more silent game this is not going to happen. For me off-ear is just that, no matter how far or close the headphones are - it will leak.
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Your point of comparison seems to be the DAS, which uses harder leathery material, and is actually not great at noise isolation. The OculusCV1 uses a thin fabric layer and is also not great at noise isolation. If the DMAS is well designed with soft foam, then even with a gap, the foam may absorb high-frequency vibrations as they bounce between the foam and outer ear before entering the ear canal.
Think about how human directional hearing works - bouncing around the somewhat hard surfaces of the outer ear. The DMAS may or may mitigate these reflections, and further mitigations might be possible as well.
I wouldnāt judge either way until actually having the DMAS in my hands for extensive testing. The DAS is an interesting comparison point one way or another though.
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Iām looking forward to trying off-ear. But from personal experience when in game with on-ear DAS I canāt hear anything else in the same room, nevermind outside 
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