Hey guys I've been thinking about this one for quite a while. I got this article from www.overclock.net.
Written by nathris - full credit goes to him/her!

I would like your opinion on the matter, and what do you guys think of setting a 5.1 headset to STEREO,
would it then compete with top brands like Sennheiser?

"Most of the 5.1 users will tell you their headphones sound amazing,
and its because they are 5.1.

Unfortunately sound quality is highly subjective.
If you pulled an average person off the street and let them try HD 201s or Koss PortaPros they would
probably say they are the best things they've ever heard, while most audiophiles wouldn't touch either one.

"5.1" headphones sound good because most of them aren't the cheap crap you get with mp3 players, and not because they are "5.1".

Now, there are two types of "5.1" headphones, USB and non-USB.

USB headphones are a complete scam because most of the time they aren't even 5.1 headphones.

Take the Creative Fatal1ty headset for instance. Its not even a 5.1 headset! Its only using 2 drivers, and because its USB its not even using your sound card. Its using software to emulate the same effects you get from features like CMSS-3D on X-Fi cards. A quality stereo headset with a dedicated X-Fi sound card will do a much better job at simulating 3d sound.



Then there are the headphones that actually stuff multiple drivers into their headset. Turtle Beach does this.

However if you stop and actually think about how you perceive sound you'll realise how stupid that it.

The human ear has the ability to tell the direction and distance of sound, that is why when you get a nice 5.1 home theater system you spread the speakers out:



The red squares represent the speakers. The angle θ represents the separation between the speakers. Becauseθ is large it is easy to tell the direction a sound is coming from, and you get a true surround effect.

Now lets look at a "5.1" headset:



This time the angle, φ is small. In fact its so small its pretty much insignificant, so it doesn't matter how many drivers they cram into the housing, because to your ear its only going to sound like a single source.


And whats worse is that because they are using more drivers, the quality is going to suffer.

For example, the Turtle Beach Ear Force FX uses 6 drivers, 3 in each ear, but because they are so close together they aren't going to sound any different than if they just used 2 drivers, so you're paying 3 times as much as you should be."

I really don't know what to think, but I love my Sennheiser PC350s. I havn't tried a decent 5.1 headset for a while, although I had the Razer Barracudas but they fell apart.