What Are Some Great 7.1 Surround Gaming Headsets?

There are a few around if you're happy with "virtual" surround sound. People seem to demand headphones with 7+1 speakers in each ear, but it's worth remembering that our individual ears are not actually capable of telling which direction a sound comes from. We have little hairs in our ear which vibrate at a given frequency, our brain does the rest of the work. We can guess at the direction of sound based on reflections/echos, and the difference in time a sound takes to reach one ear and the other. If you have a 16 speaker headset and disable the left or right set of speakers, you will not be able to do any directional hearing.

Some people do feel that two speaker surround headsets make the sound feel like it's coming from inside their head, but personally they don't bother me and the directional stuff is just as good. At a similar price, you'll also much better quality speakers if your money is paying for two speakers (or four if they're splitting base and treble) rather than 14 or 16.

The HyperX Cloud II gets pretty solid reviews. The Corsair Gaming H2100 is an excellent solution if wireless is a Plus for you. Both should be had for at or around $100 US.

7.1 Surround in a headset is a gimmick. Almost all of them use a built in DAC to emulate surround sound, something that even the cheapest built-in sound has been able to do for a long time. That also means that these headsets ignore your computer's sound card and will never sound better than they already do.

If you want good gaming headsets with decent sound and a good mic, go Logitech. Just don't expect high end audio from any gaming headset. These things are targeted at gamers and spend more on looks that sound quality. It's easy to exploit people who have think bigger booms = better sound.

The vast majority of headsets are virtual surround (only 2 drivers), a good quality 2 driver Set will be a much higher quality than a gimmicky Multi driver set as the speakers will be of lower quality. Here are some of my favorite they blow away any Gaming headset you can find, that is if you care about Sound quality and not a easy accessible Mic.

These make you go...OMG this shit is Amazing.

Shure SRH440 Studio Headphones $99
Grado SR 60e $79
AKG K451 $79
Skullcandy Grind $50 "Huge surprise here"

Not sure of Logitech. I've tried a set of Logitech G230's and found that although they were very comfortable and had good sound insulation, the audio seriously lacked spatial awareness. Whether the surround sound version (the G430's were any better, I'm not sure. I personally use Turtlebeach Z11's which I also use in 5.1 mode and they work me.