Surround Headphones

If you do any gaming on your PC, surround sound headphones are a worthy investment.    Most gamers make do with a two speaker rig. Let me tell you what you are missing. If you have a good set of headphones that have surround sound, your enemy is in real trouble. You will be able to hear them coming from a mile away and you’ll know exactly where they are coming from. These headphones are not for everybody as they can be a bit bulky and heavy, especially the ones with all the electronics in the headsets themselves. The effect is so uncanny, don’t be surprised if the other players accuse you of cheating. Is it cheating to be using every available technology advance to our advantage? I certainly don’t think so and neither should you.

I guess that some of you will want at least some technical details of typical surround sound headphones. There are some models out there that actually have discrete drivers for all the components of a full surround system. For those of you who are unfamiliar with surround technology, there is a middle front speaker called the center speaker for dialog. Moving side to side are the front speakers which output the normal stereo sound that we are accustomed to hearing. Then we have two rear speakers for the surround sound and finally a dedicated subwoofer for the lowest bass sounds.

In some newer model headphones, all those speakers are actually present inside those large ear cups. If you take the cover off the headphones, you will see a center driver, a front driver, a surround driver and a sub driver. All these drivers are spaced apart so you get enough of a separation of sound to mimic the sound coming from a home theater loudspeaker system. Do these surround sound headphones work? Yes, according to reviews they are very popular because they actually work very well. They are pretty heavy, though. To round out the package, most headphones come with a multi-channel usb audio adapter. This adapter plugs into your usb port and drives all the channels of the surround headset.

As anyone who has ever worn a set of headphones can tell you, the effect of listening to sound seemingly coming from the center of your head is not nearly as good as listening to music coming from two high quality loudspeakers. The fact that the left and right ears are so effectively separated from each other makes for a very artificial sound stage. The sense of depth you get from a good pair of speakers is completely absent. Enter surround headphones to the rescue.

Built into the headphones are amplifiers and sound processors. These sound processors recreate the missing cues that give the ears a sense of space. If they do their job properly, you are surrounded by sound. Also if you like watching movies but don’t want to disturb your neighbors at 3:00AM or your significant other, then surround headphones are for you. Movies sound pretty awesome as you can hear things coming at you from all directions. I have actually ducked when watching an action movie with these headphones on. With the right movie, you’ll be hopping all about the place, in a good way.

You might wonder how much these things cost? There are inexpensive units that work pretty well. You can also go crazy and spend hundreds of dollars. You really need to get out there with your favorite movie and go sample them live at your nearest retail store. The more expensive units come with outboard Dolby decoder boxes and coaxial/digital inputs. These decoders will do an admirable job of decoding the Dolby surround and mixing it into two channels for the headset that comes with the decoder. The cheaper units have everything built into the headphones. Unfortunately, these units tend to be quite heavy. Some of you may not like the extra weight that these headphones carry due to the electronics on board. Extended sessions can become quite uncomfortable if you are sensitive to that kind of thing. Again, as I stated before, try them out at a retail store before committing to a purchase. At any rate, whichever surround headphones you get, you will be astounded at the difference between them and ordinary headphones.