Hello all,
I've been doing a lot of research on surround sound headphones and I have a dilemma--I have no idea what to choose.
When I first went to using headphones instead of speakers, I bought (and used for quite some time) a pair of $50 Zalman 5.1 surround sound headphones. This was back in 2000 or so. They have the 3 3.5mm audio jacks to plug into my sound card and sounded great to me. Years later I moved to a pair of Tritton AX51 (I don't think they are the Pro version as they are green). They also have the 3 3.5mm jacks but unlike the Zalman, also have an integrated mic and an amplifier. These have worked well for the most part, though the mic failed long ago and just last night, the whole set finally died. I had to revert back to using the Zalman set, which I'm glad I kept.
In my opinion, both sound great, even when I had to go back to the Zalman set last night. I honestly didn't like the amplifier very much on the Tritton set as it seemed to change too much in my opinion. I liked how the Zalman just took the signal directly, without changing it, and just plain worked. I'm a simple man and am not an audiophile so many will probably laugh when I said that I think they both sound great. They are 'true' or 'real' 5.1 surround and I never had many issues other than what I mentioned already.
Yet, I would prefer to have a new pair instead of relying on the old Zalman set. They will mainly be used for PC gaming and movies (very occasional music) and I would like to actually use the sound card I have instead of going with a USB option or external sound card built-into the headphones. My sound card is an old Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 5.1 and I have a budget of $100 to $200.
I have read a lot of reviews and it seems most people serious on audio quality say to stick with good stereo headphones and buy a separate mic. But to me, that would be strange as it would seem to make my sound card useless (except for any software/hardware surround virtualization that it could provide). I would prefer to use the 3 3.5mm jacks and have at least some sense of 5.1 surround sound via the standard analog connection. Of course, I'm up to any recommendations though as maybe things have changed more than I thought, and so should I.
Thank you for your time and help! And I apologize for my lack of appropriate technical wordage.
