RazberyBandit :
While I love the sound quality of my Tritton AX51 Pro's, I can't stand their build quality. I'm on my 3rd pair in less than a year. The problem stems from an un-reinforced wiring connection to the ear-cup. Any stress on that connection is likely to sever a wire. So, if you were to use them, I suggest no sudden getting up from the PC with them still on, as it will jerk on the wiring.
The difference between this pair of Trittons and most other 5.1 headsets? There's no inline 5.1 USB audio device and no software required to enable such a device. You just plug them into your existing 5.1 jacks on your motherboard or sound card, connect it's power plug, and you're done. If you've already got a hi-fi sound card or onboard HD audio, the USB-based headsets just add yet another device and more software.
More or less correct, especially on the lack of decent reinforment on the AX Pro earcups (ehnce the reason I now use a G35).
First and formost: There are only two 7.1 headsets: The Logitech G35 and Razer Megalodon. The G35 basically uses an enhanced version of dolby headphone that maps a 7.1 audio stream onto a 2.1 plane. The Megalodon does the same thing, just with a proprietary software solution instead. As all USB headsets do, they ignore the soundcard for processing (although the megalodon claims to use the soundcard, although I'm unsure to what degree).
Secondly, all USB 5.1 solutions use either dolby headphone, or some other simmilar software solution to achieve the same effect. If you have a soundcard, theres no reason to go this route.
Optical 5.1 solutions
generally squeeze more actual speakers into the headset [emphess added], as opposed to virtualizing the sound. This tends to give better side channel processing, but these have two downsides:
1: External decoder module for decoding Dolby Digital/DTS audio.
2: To get 5.1 in games, you need to encode the audio stream to one of these formats, which requires a dedicated soundcard with either Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect.
And of course, theres also 5.1 analog...