Is Surround Sound gaming overrated compared to Headphones?

[|Pipe Dreams]

I've been debating for a long time whether to buy a good 5.1/7.1 Surround Sound setup for my PC.

Or just continue using my Steelseries Nova Pro

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Surround sound (stereo or headphones) is amazing and is necessary in fps games.

[Jinrum]

With some good headphones you be the judge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

[ReBoot]

Good headphones are enough to locate sound sources.

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Surround sound (stereo or headphones) is amazing and is necessary in fps games.

QFT, listening to audio clues is basically a radar superpower. KF2, for example, got invisible bosses getting visible at the moment your health is going down. With good headphones, you can rip them before they do you.

[GunsForBucks]

Some surround sound makes audio positioning worse.

Headphones without surround sound I find gives me better situational awareness.

Hyper X sound cloud .. the surround adds a bit of reverb that actually made direction fuzzier to me.

Have a friend with the same headphones and he swore it was better for him with it on.

IDK to each their own I suppose, may even need getting used to kind of thing.. but I just don't like it.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

7.1 headphones

[Kargor]

It certainly depends on what you want.

I hate headphones; I use a headset for google meet (and similar stuff), and the speakers for everything else. In my case, since I "only" have 5.1 speakers, I can leave both plugged in -- modern audio drivers can split the available channels so a stereo headset can appear as a separate audio device.