Surround Headphones - what the dealio??

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I've never really used headphones whilst console/PC gaming, but having moved into a shared house where I don't want to keep my housemates up with gunfire noise all night, I've switched to headphones. I can't believe I've never tried gaming with headphones before as it really does make the experience much more immersive, especially in FPSs when trying to determine the location of a shooter.

With this in mind, I was thinking about getting a semi-decent pair of wired or wireless headphones. I started looking into so-called 'surround' headphones and they don't seem to be that much more expensive.

Can anyone offer any info on these? Do they use more than just L&R speakers? Or do they just emulate surround sound? And if so, are they really worth it?

My other question, if they do in fact offer true 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound is, do they connect via standard headphone jack connector? Or do you need a console with an optical or other output capable of carrying a digital audio stream??

I'm clueless!! :)
 
OK there's a few types to look at.

One is the multiple driver in each ear variety. These stick 3 or 4 headphone drivers in each ear. They're fundamentally flawed in that you hear surround speakers with both ears. All surround content is made for speakers so the left and right directional aspect is always over emphasised. Also quality seems to suffer as you have to fund 8 headphone drivers instead of 2. Sound quality is typically on par with headphones 1/4 to 1/3 of the price.

Then there's surround virtualisation (or emulation). These use generic Head Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) to simulate surround sound speakers using stereo headphones. Everyone has an unique HRTF (it's to do with the shape of your head / ears etc) but most of the widely available ones use generic HRTFs. That requires you getting a good match for the best results. These include Dolby Headphone (my favourite so far - available on most Xonar soundcards) and CMSS-3D (Available on most X-Fi soundcards).

The best (and most expensive) option is surround virtualisation that measures your custom HRTF and allows you to use it. SVS Realizer is basically state of the art for these but it'll set you back about US $3k.

Unless you want to spend silly money - I would go for a Dolby Headphone option. Stereo headphones will do as long as you have a capable soundcard or receiver.

What's your budget by the way?
 
Multi driver type headphones, such as Roccat Kave use 3.5mm jacks, meaning you need to use them with something that is going to output 5.1 via analogue connections, a PC sound card, or on-board audio for eg. They wont be any use for a console, as consoles only have stereo analogue output. Consoles output 5.1 over digital connection, so you would need something that uses optical. USB ones are no use for console use, as they require drivers, which you wont get on a console. Also, AFAIK, any headphones/headset that will work with USB on a consoles are only going to be stereo.
 
The other slightly more expensive solution is to get a dolby headphone encoder like the Astro A40 mixamp, which will take a digital connection and so will connect to any sound card or console with digital audio out, and use a decent set of headphones with it.
 
Cool, thanks for the wealth of information guys! If any mods are reading, the first reply by Uriel might be sticky-worthy for this section.

My budget would probably be around £50 to £75 - I can't see myself spending more than that on a set of headphones! Interesting to find out about HRTF; I'm more of a console gamer though so anything which requires a sound card to accurately split audio streams probably isn't really of much interest to me... Almost seems like just a decent set of headphones would be better for me, and forget all the surround-sound malarky, unless anyone can suggest a good pair of gaming surround headphones for consoles??
 
Not for £75. Anything that uses the optical from your consoles will cost you £100 roughly. An Astro Mixamp is about £100 I think, and Turtle Beach X41, which are wireless surround sound headphones for consoles, are about £130.

Probably best to get some decent stereo headphones, and use them with both consoles and PC, and maybe a sound card for the PC if you wanted. Xonar DG at £25 or so is a good buy.
 
Make sure you get a decent stereo pair of headphones with good bass and either dolby headphone or CMSS-3D based virtual surround. I gamed for so long on an average headset even tho I used a decent set of Senns for music, buying a set of Sennheiser PC163Ds lately for gaming I came to realise just how much I was missing in terms of bass (and overall sound quality) and how much having deep vibrant bass bring games like Call of Duty, etc. to life.
 
FYI I have the so called 5.1 headphones (4 speakers in each ear) and I now only use these in CSS as they give an advantage in the sound (can really hear people walking around as no other environmental sounds).

for all my other games I use goldring DR50 headphones, these are about £20 and work brilliantly with dolby headphone. The headphones sound crisp and bright and good bass in my opinion. A few others here should also be able to shed some light also.

To sum up, for £50 you can get

goldring DR50 £20
Xonar DG PCI sound card £25

this would use virtual surround sound, which as far as I can hear gives better clarity and positional audio in all newer games.
 
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