Surround Sound
Headphones – A Gamer's Dream!
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.
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