😀 I just received my Medusa 5.1 progamer a couple days ago and I'm quite satisfied with them. I had previously owned a set of Zalman's 5.1.
Here's my setup:
Dell Inspiron E1705 17in Widescreen Laptop
XP Media Edition
Duocore 2ghz
2gb Ram
Nvidia 7800go
Wolfclaw Type II Keyboard and Logitech G5 (Not important for this comparison, but they sure are some cool peripheals! 😛 )
External Creative Soundblaster Live 5.1 (This laptop does not have a PCMCIA slot or I would have gotten the PCMCIA soundcard)
For starters, I just don't see how you guys can stand to have the bass redirect all the way to the right. I have mine on about 86 and it sounds great! I listen to hip-hop, rap, rock, and country. Lots my tunes have some hard bass in them and it feels like the headset is going to bounce right off my head sometimes. 😀
Between fooling around with the bass redirect and equalizer, I'm very satisfied with the way I have it sounding now.
As far as compared to the Zalman's...?
In the music and DVD category, the Zalmans don't have a chance against the Medusa Headset. The Medusa is by far the superior headset for listening to music and watching movies.
As far as gaming goes, I will say that the Medusa is a better headset than the Zalman's, but not by much IMO. It does have the integrated mic, which is nice. It's sound is marginally better. (To my ears) Other than that, I felt the Zalman's gave just as much positional awareness as the Medusa headset does. My game of choice is Unreal Tournament 2004.
All that being said, I am very happy with this headset and I plan on keeping it for awhile.
Lastly, the Medusa's have ALOT (read as a WHOLE LOT) more soundbleed than the Zalman's. This however is not an issue to me though it may be to others.
p.s. It sounds better with CMSS enabled to me. ymmv.